📢 New Blog Post! 🌌 Dive into the world of Aermundi with our latest blog, "Practicum on Fictoscience in Fantasy: Creating a Lived-In World." Explore the blend of magic and technology and learn how to create immersive fantasy settings.
New on my blog is the second half of my top 10 imaginary worlds. I get a bit deeper this time (or go on a bit more!), as these are ones that have shaped me as a writer.
I'm developing a fantasy setting which has a magical industrial revolution largely based around enchanted, animated, self-moving gears.
For the most part, these should be of standardized sizes (because any industrial revolution worth its salt should have lots of standardization). But what I am still struggling with is their casing. There should be some external, mechanical way of setting rotation speed and direction, and I don't have any good ideas on how to visualize that.
I also need a good name for these enchanted gears. Any suggestions?
What if dragons came in broods like cicadas?
Every Y centuries a brood returned.
Brood 19 and Brood 37 overlap next year and your people are very, very worried. #DnD#WorldBuilding#TTRPG
Non sum qualis eram, as the poet says. Not a happy ending but a good one: "Learned by heart" from Emma Donoghue (c)2023 is the last book I finished. #worldbuilding wise it gave me ideas for fantastic academia and might influence my image of the MSM on #Karcanon in the generation before Phyter. Have you read it? Have you compared it to Christa Winsloe's classic book of #sapphic school days? @bookstodon
#Pathfinder 2e has will-o'-wisps as monsters who feed on fear. But to my mind, this does not mean that they actively have to kill their victims.
In fact, that might be counterproductive if they feed on the fear of sapient beings, as that will eventually result in retaliation. If they toy with their victims and then let them go, the victim might tell others - who are then more anxious if they visit the region the will-o'-wisp lives in. A win-win!
And they are smart enough to figure this stuff out. They might also simply choose to dwell in places where fear and misery prosper, such as slums, prisons, or orphanages.
Or they might even work for humans! A "Haunted House" employee who can sense the level of fear in visitors would be very useful. More disturbingly, interrogators - police or otherwise - would be greatly assisted by an entity who can sense fear as well.
There are plenty of ways of portraying such creatures, and "combat encounters" are probably the least interesting aspect.
A steady water supply was essential for any kind of human settlement. Yet with springs and wells, the source of the water was ultimately inaccessible and deep underground. #Folclore filled in the gaps of the hydrologic cycle, and thus all sorts of water spirits, dwarves, and other entities lived down there who might influence the water supply.
However, fantasy worlds not only have elaborate underground ecosystems, they have entire subterranean civilizations! And many of the activities of these "underdark" creatures could influence the water that actually reaches the surface. Strange carcasses could be found in wells and befoul the water. Subterranean mining operations could produce toxic wastes. Or maybe they are simply diverting more water for their fungus gardens.
Do the people on the surface have any understanding of such subterranean influences? If not, what myths do they tell of them? If they do, is there anything they can actually do about this?
Or are regions with a large subterranean population simply avoided by surface dwellers - since you cannot trust the water?
Given the existence of sea monsters and possibly-hostile undersea civilizations, oversea trade in fantasy settings might be less developed than in our world.
After all, real world ocean travel was often dangerous enough - and this was without having to dodge sea monsters or bribing fish people. While you might be able to fight off monster attacks on your caravan on land, this becomes considerably more difficult when the attackers come from beneath the ship you float in.
Thus, overland travel might be a lot cheaper than ocean travel, once you budget for the added risks.
#ttrpg / #dnd thought: Most people can actually co-exist peacefully with many of the "monsters" in their surrounding regions because they know how they behave and what not to do when they are nearby.
However, outsiders like "adventurers" don't have this local knowledge, and thus are much more likely to trigger the threat response of these creatures - resulting in violence.
The latest episode of my free grimdark fantasy serial can now be read on my blog. In ‘Prize Fighter’ the company’s second-in-command is attempting to assess a new recruit, but his efforts are hampered by an impromptu wrestling match.
One of the coolest #worldbuilding things you can do is write 3 versions of a legend, then weave 2 of them together, keeping even contradictory and repetitive parts. This is kind of how the oldest parts of the Bible were written and leads to some very cool and authentic effects.
Imagine a stereotypical "elven forest kingdom" - Lothlorien, Cormanthor, whatever. They are living in harmony with nature and are fairly stable, but due to elven biology their birth rates are very low, and thus the number of elves living there has been slowly but steadily decreasing.
So, what happens to that stagnant, isolated society if some human alchemist in a nearby city develops a highly effective fertility potion - which also works on elves?
The people living in the mountains know of "bad springs" where poisonous waters come out of the mountains, and people and animal alike who drink of them will become sick.
These are actually the exits for the sewage pipes of dwarven settlements, which also carry the toxic byproducts of their mines away!
So what happens when the surface-dwellers learn who is poisoning their valleys?
Question to #ttrpg#dungeon builders: Are there any books that discuss developing "dungeon styles"?
I mean, take the #ElderScrolls setting: It has Nordic Ruins, Dwemer Ruins, Daedric Shrines, natural cave systems, Velothi Ruins, Ayleid Ruins, and probably a few others that I am forgetting.
Yes, part of this is the necessity of video games to recycle assets. But I think there is a real value in contemplating which cultures left which types of dungeons behind, and what their distinctive features there. In an exploration-heavy campaign, these can be an excellent bit of emergent #worldbuilding !
The "main continent" of the world which I am focusing on stretches from the southern polar regions all the way to the equator - and the center of the continent is dominated by a massive mountain range that extends for more than 3000 km north-to-south, and is even larger east-to-west - far larger than any mountain range on Earth.
Do you have any good ideas for a #mythology explanation that explains why the continent is shaped like this?
#ttrpg#worldbuilding idea: A loosely Inca-inspired socialist culture where the leaders use highly advanced mathematics to plan their society, anticipate the needs of their citizens, and devise the optimal strategies for interactions with other polities.
ProTip for #ttrpg#worldbuilding efforts: If you want to learn a lot about international trade routes, trade goods, and raw resources, search for "commercial geography" on the Internet Archive.
Hat tip to @clew for pointing me into the right direction!
A question for #Bookstodon : As part of my #ttrpg#worldbuilding efforts, I am looking for good books on 19th century #trade networks and supply chains - where things (from raw materials to finished goods) were produced, and what happened until they reached their final consumers.
In particular, I want to get a good overview of the sheer range and variety of trade goods (as opposed to looking at just a single aspect of global and domestic trade). Can anyone help me out? #history#histodon
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