worldbuilding Fantasy World planning

[+Ark1002]

1 minute ago, Turtle373 said:

I'm going to work on some Gods for worldbuilding, I'm trying to come up with ideas for what there would be Gods of, I think there will be two or three Demi Gods of war, maybe an ascendant god of healing, if you have any ideas for other gods please share, I will also work on their respective priesthoods, though the war god's priests will pretty much just be soldiers of a certain country/region

Hmm... ima make a goddess of wisdom.

[+ZincAboutIt she/her]

Just now, Arky-boi said:

Hmm... ima make a goddess of wisdom.

I created a goddess of logic/education called Vanya, she is the patron of The Orthodoxy. However, I do think wisdom and logic/education could be two different things. Wisdom could focus on esoterica, the more abstract concepts of wisdom. Also, we could have more than one god of something. I don't think Natural magic would prohibit that, so please feel free! I will add notes on The Orthodoxy and Vanya tonight.

[Turtle373 he/him]

2 minutes ago, ZincAboutIt said:

I created a goddess of logic/education called Vanya, she is the patron of The Orthodoxy. However, I do think wisdom and logic/education could be two different things. Wisdom could focus on esoterica, the more abstract concepts of wisdom. Also, we could have more than one god of something. I don't think Natural magic would prohibit that, so please feel free! I will add notes on The Orthodoxy and Vanya tonight.

plus there are two continents, so people can have similar ideas and create similar gods, just on a different continent, however if that happens then there will only be a very slight influence from that God/Goddess

[+ZincAboutIt she/her]

1 minute ago, Turtle373 said:

plus there are two continents, so people can have similar ideas and create similar gods, just on a different continent, however if that happens then there will only be a very slight influence from that God/Goddess

Very true! I believe the majority of our story will concentrate on the western continent in the area surrounding the country of Kuria, but there is nothing prohibiting anyone from creating gods and cultures on the other continent.  Also, our setting isn't set in stone regarding which country or area we center on.

[+Ark1002]

5 minutes ago, ZincAboutIt said:

I created a goddess of logic/education called Vanya, she is the patron of The Orthodoxy. However, I do think wisdom and logic/education could be two different things. Wisdom could focus on esoterica, the more abstract concepts of wisdom. Also, we could have more than one god of something. I don't think Natural magic would prohibit that, so please feel free! I will add notes on The Orthodoxy and Vanya tonight.

My goddess is of wisdom and prophecy. I'll add some details later.

[+ZincAboutIt she/her]

1 minute ago, Arky-boi said:

My goddess is of wisdom and prophecy. I'll add some details later.

Sounds wonderful!

[Steel Inquisitive he/him]

Wow! You guys are great!

@ShadowLord_Lith Looks good to me! If anyone has comments please voice them, but I thought you nailed it.

@MacThorstensonLooks great! I love how much effort you put into it.

@ZincAboutItKeep up the good work! (I assume the new animals are your work?)

@Turtle373 Thanks! The thing that makes a fantasy world pop is in the details! so go crazy! @Arky-boiSame thing for you!

It's all coming together! I love all of you! *starts crying*

(I have to be at work stupid early tomorrow.... So see all tomorrow afternoon.)

[+Ark1002]

You know what, screw that. I'm making her now.

[+ZincAboutIt she/her]

Just now, Steel Inquisitive said:

Wow! You guys are great!

@ShadowLord_Lith Looks good to me! If anyone has comments please voice them, but I thought you nailed it.

@MacThorstensonLooks great! I love how much effort you put into it.

@ZincAboutItKeep up the good work! (I assume the new animals are your work?)

@Turtle373 Thanks! The thing that makes a fantasy world pop is in the details! so go crazy! @Arky-boiSame thing for you!

It's all coming together! I love all of you! *starts crying*

(I have to be at work stupid early tomorrow.... So see all tomorrow afternoon.)

Yep the new weird creatures are mine! Also there is now a Visual Representation Document that you can put illustrations, internet pictures, symbol alphabets, whatever you want into! These things are part of the small details. When we figure out general clothing trends I will do my best to illustrate them. Hoping to create a sort of crowd-sourced "Shallan's Sketchbook" for our world!  

[MacThorstenson he/him]

So I would like to kind of start ironing out the setting a little bit more.

A lot of the work that people are doing could be applied to everywhere on the map, but I would like to iron out some more specific details, like how big of cities are we thinking, what is the life of people in the country like? 

Assuming we are going with Kuria, I would imagine a few things.

The first is that the big thing is trade. The country lies at the mouth of a river that extends deep into the continent, so it should be a big way for people from the center of the continent to get their goods to the west coast. 

The second thing that we tossed around was that the fuel crystals grow naturally there? That could be a good idea, but I think that that provides people with too much of a reason to try and take over the country. If its a trading central and a magical hotspot we would need a big in world reason for other countries not trying to attack them all the time.

[+Ark1002]

Spoiler

Media, the oracle of flame:

Goddess of: Wisdom, prophecy, fire

Location: (I haven't decided)

Worship system: The median temple is on top of a massive mountain, Mount Fenix. On the slopes is an incredible amount of Apex and Monsters, usually fire related and reptilian. It also has a Progenitor, a Basilisk, and it's children. One must travel up the slopes, after being unfed for a full day, and try and survive. When you reach the top, it is said that you have transcended to a slightly closer level, after losing all physical comfort. Then, when within, one drinks a poison that slows the breathing and heartbeat. If you survive, you are brought to the last cleansing ritual. Three paths, one with gold, one with food, one empty. If you choose the empty path, you reach the Median Priests. They let you write a question, burn it, then stare into the fire. If one can stare unmovingly, besides breath and blinking, for three hours, Media appears in the flame, and grants you a prophecy, an answer to a question, or a place in her priesthood.

History: Media grew up in a rich family, but in an act of rebellion, refused rich clothing, and went to fast in slum. During that time, she grew delirious with hunger, and told some of those starving there she could see the future in the flame. Her prediction came true, and legend spread. By the time she had been found and fed, she was already well known. And, now, she almost thought she did see something. She told people more, along with giving people advice, as well as she could. She became reknowned as a wise oracle of fire, and soon found that she was able to see things, able to make intelligent decisions which seemed obvious now. And, also, she could control fire. Eventually, a stage came where some who's life she had transformed came to worship her. More and more, until she became an actual god.

 

[+ZincAboutIt she/her]

18 minutes ago, MacThorstenson said:

So I would like to kind of start ironing out the setting a little bit more.

A lot of the work that people are doing could be applied to everywhere on the map, but I would like to iron out some more specific details, like how big of cities are we thinking, what is the life of people in the country like? 

Assuming we are going with Kuria, I would imagine a few things.

The first is that the big thing is trade. The country lies at the mouth of a river that extends deep into the continent, so it should be a big way for people from the center of the continent to get their goods to the west coast. 

The second thing that we tossed around was that the fuel crystals grow naturally there? That could be a good idea, but I think that that provides people with too much of a reason to try and take over the country. If its a trading central and a magical hotspot we would need a big in world reason for other countries not trying to attack them all the time.

In terms of city size, I think that Kuria's capital of Roshek (hello unintentional almost-Mistborn reference ) should be quite large and populous. It's an ideal trading city and cultural capital. If we are thinking of going with a semi-medieval/Renaissance feel, I'd picture something almost like 17th-century Amsterdam, or perhaps one of the Italian trading cities, something like that. I'm not sure that it needs to be the center of crystal growth. It almost makes more sense for one of the inland countries to have the crystal production, perhaps one of the more mountainous ones which would prevent overt and easy takeover by surrounding areas. Kuria, being a trading center, would be an obvious place for a god of commerce or merchants. Perhaps this god is very powerful and keeps other interests from invading Kuria? 

This will be my last post of the night - until tomorrow friends! 

[kenod]

12 hours ago, Steel Inquisitive said:

Setting....... We have a map with lots of info.... I expect lots of people want to help with the cultures. More legends/myths are always appreciated. ( @kenod If you have the time.... Could you spearhead this effort? I believe you were the one who told me you wrote twelve pages of fluff for another RP.... So it seemed like you enjoy it!)

Sure. Does the map have geographical info as well, such as climate, mountains, forests, that kind of stuff? Also, I guess we don't have any established cultures yet except for Kuria?

Edit:
Are we going to keep the cultures the map gives? While they probably work for broad strokes, I imagine that actual cultural borders would probably be a bit different, especially when influenced by all the other world-building.

Edit 2:
It might be best if we don't stick to anything on the map except for country locations, relative size and height. The current map is only the size of the US, and doesn't seem to take things like temperature and humidity into account. I think this is mostly a software thing.

Edited March 10, 2019 by kenod

[ShadowLord_Lith he/him]

8 hours ago, ZincAboutIt said:

In terms of city size, I think that Kuria's capital of Roshek (hello unintentional almost-Mistborn reference ) should be quite large and populous. It's an ideal trading city and cultural capital. If we are thinking of going with a semi-medieval/Renaissance feel, I'd picture something almost like 17th-century Amsterdam, or perhaps one of the Italian trading cities, something like that. I'm not sure that it needs to be the center of crystal growth. It almost makes more sense for one of the inland countries to have the crystal production, perhaps one of the more mountainous ones which would prevent overt and easy takeover by surrounding areas. Kuria, being a trading center, would be an obvious place for a god of commerce or merchants. Perhaps this god is very powerful and keeps other interests from invading Kuria? 

This will be my last post of the night - until tomorrow friends! 

Well, Venice was the only producer of blown glass for a while. If this country are more like a large island, it could function like venice. I suppose that if we wanted to, the two patron gods of Kuria could be the gods of taking and diplomacy or something, then they play all of the big countries off of each other to keep people from invading them?

[+ZincAboutIt she/her]

8 minutes ago, ShadowLord_Lith said:

Well, Venice was the only producer of blown glass for a while. If this country are more like a large island, it could function like venice. I suppose that if we wanted to, the two patron gods of Kuria could be the gods of taking and diplomacy or something, then they play all of the big countries off of each other to keep people from invading them?

Judging from the geography, most of the country will likely be some kind of delta or floodplain, what with 3 rivers emptying out into the bay there. Whatever we decide, water is a huge geographical element here. We could even have a river god who could somehow reverse the flow of the rivers if needed? Eh that's not my favorite idea. I like the idea of two gods. I think commerce or trade should be one, it makes sense, but the other can be whatever else.

Edit: just saw the Google doc, it already lists lots about Kuria's culture, glad we're all largely on the same wavelength  

Edited March 10, 2019 by ZincAboutIt

[MacThorstenson he/him]

5 hours ago, kenod said:

It might be best if we don't stick to anything on the map except for country locations, relative size and height. The current map is only the size of the US, and doesn't seem to take things like temperature and humidity into account. I think this is mostly a software thing.

I mean, the continental US is about the size of continental Europe, so I think that it is plenty of space to RP in. If we want more we can always change that, but I don't think that a group of 5-6 RP'ers is going to need that much space to RP.

The culture's boundaries should be in flux, but I imagine that that whole bay area would have pretty similar cultures as well as being pretty interconnected.

[+ZincAboutIt she/her]

36 minutes ago, MacThorstenson said:

The culture's boundaries should be in flux, but I imagine that that whole bay area would have pretty similar cultures as well as being pretty interconnected.

I agree. All the countries surrounding Kuria share the same language base, which I would guess indicates a relatively similar culture with regional variances. I think the language should be the same until you hit the other cultural-based countries (Elladian and Natwelli). The language that is spoken in Kuria is likely going to be the "language of trade" since the bay and surrounding coastline also largely speaks this language, along with the majority of the countries along the large rivers, so it will likely be popular even in those other countries like Cucal. We should probably decide on the "origin country" of the region (doesn't have to be Kuria) and then base the cultures around that country/region. Clothing, general cultural aspects, any kind of social taboos (like the Vorin safehand, or literacy restriction) should mark the true "culture barriers" of the continent. For example, perhaps in Cucal it is customary for men above the age of 20 to shave the left half of their head and let the other side grow long into a side-plait. This would easily mark someone as "from there" and thus different in the eyes of the primary culture. Smaller differences could mark the cultures that are Kuria-adjacent: different hem-lengths on women's clothing, the way a sword is placed on the body, popular clothing colors, head-garb (kerchief vs. hat vs. braiding, etc). 

[kenod]

2 hours ago, MacThorstenson said:

I mean, the continental US is about the size of continental Europe, so I think that it is plenty of space to RP in. If we want more we can always change that, but I don't think that a group of 5-6 RP'ers is going to need that much space to RP.

The culture's boundaries should be in flux, but I imagine that that whole bay area would have pretty similar cultures as well as being pretty interconnected.

I mean as in the distance from the west coast of the west continent to the east coast of the east continent is the same as the distance of the west coast of the us to the east coast of the us, which seems rather small for an entire world, and more like these are just two continents and there are a bunch more around. It would also explain the lack of deserts, tropical and tundra regions.

[MacThorstenson he/him]

11 minutes ago, kenod said:

I mean as in the distance from the west coast of the west continent to the east coast of the east continent is the same as the distance of the west coast of the us to the east coast of the us, which seems rather small for an entire world, and more like these are just two continents and there are a bunch more around. It would also explain the lack of deserts, tropical and tundra regions.

That is very true, but this mapping program wasn't designed to simulate an entire world. The other settings are archipelagos, atolls, and volcanic islands.

When I found this mapping software, I was actually trying to only find something that was the size of maybe western Europe, because we don't need that much space.

From what it sounds like, we are aiming for a more traditional European environment for classical fantasy, and not an entire world. 

[kenod]

1 minute ago, MacThorstenson said:

That is very true, but this mapping program wasn't designed to simulate an entire world. The other settings are archipelagos, atolls, and volcanic islands.

When I found this mapping software, I was actually trying to only find something that was the size of maybe western Europe, because we don't need that much space.

From what it sounds like, we are aiming for a more traditional European environment for classical fantasy, and not an entire world. 

True. It might be capable of it in the future though, but the author hasn't updated the github page with all the new features yet. Their Trello page shows a whole bunch of nice features like seeing temperatures and biomes, but they haven't uploaded those yet. Which makes the fact that the last modification to the github files was 5 days ago.

For now, let's just say that this is a group of two continents at around the same latitude as Europa, with similar sizes. This would allow us to have an ocean climate at the coast, a Northern (Scandinavian) climate in the north, land climate in the center (especially around the mountains), and a Mediterranean climate along the southern coasts and possibly in the Kurian Bay.

 

Completely unrelated note, in a lot of myths and stories gods and spirits have children with humans, how would that work here? I'm guessing spirits normally wouldn't be capable of something like that, but those capable of taking human form because of these stories might, and there's also the fact that if a lot of people believe someone is part-spirit, or if they believe that something like that happens a lot in a certain village, this might create the same effects for normal humans as well, even if they weren't actually part spirit in the beginning.

[ShadowLord_Lith he/him]

44 minutes ago, kenod said:

Completely unrelated note, in a lot of myths and stories gods and spirits have children with humans, how would that work here? I'm guessing spirits normally wouldn't be capable of something like that, but those capable of taking human form because of these stories might, and there's also the fact that if a lot of people believe someone is part-spirit, or if they believe that something like that happens a lot in a certain village, this might create the same effects for normal humans as well, even if they weren't actually part spirit in the beginning.

Let's assume no one knows how exactly natural magic works, they might have similar stories here- after all, according to christianity, Jesus was born of god and a mortal woman after 'The spirit was over her', and plenty of ancient cultures believed in gods that they made up, and that those gods had mortal children all the time. So here? Especially for gods/goddesses of fertility/childbirth/intimacy/love, it's likely that such things are at least believed into existence- maybe god can create illusory bodies and when they are 'intimate', they're just using their power to cause a child to pop into existence, or cause an embryo to start forming. Who knows?

Edited March 10, 2019 by ShadowLord_Lith

[kenod]

1 minute ago, ShadowLord_Lith said:

Let's assume no one knows how exactly natural magic works, they might have similar stories here- after all, according to christianity, Jesus was born of god and a mortal woman after 'The spirit was over her', and plenty of ancient cultures believed in gods that they made up, and that those gods had mortal children all the time. So here? Especially for gods/goddesses of fertility/childbirth/intimacy/love, it's likely that such things are at least believed into existence- maybe god can create illusory bodies and when they are 'intimate', they're just using their power to cause a child to pop into existence, or cause an embryo to start forming. Who knows?

It doesn't have to be gods either, spirits exist as well, and there are a number of spirits capable of taking human form, and myths like these are common for spirits as well in our world, especially if you look at more animistic religions, with Irish myth having fishermen taking Selkies for wives, an Inuit story about a man wooing a fox, in Japan Abe No Seimei (basically Japanese Merlin) had a Kitsune (fox spirit) as mother, some stories about Merlin say his father was an incubus (not sure if that counts as a spirit though), and children of nymphs in Greek myth.

I'm mostly curious about what the results of this would be though, if the children would gain any powers, or an unusual appearance, or if something else would happen.

[MacThorstenson he/him]

1 hour ago, kenod said:

For now, let's just say that this is a group of two continents at around the same latitude as Europa, with similar sizes. This would allow us to have an ocean climate at the coast, a Northern (Scandinavian) climate in the north, land climate in the center (especially around the mountains), and a Mediterranean climate along the southern coasts and possibly in the Kurian Bay.

 

Yep. Looks good.

I do have one concern about the story, and think that we need to iron it out before we start RPing, and that is interaction between the characters. The world is very big, and generally could be pretty widely spread out, so I think we will need something to make sure that our characters meet up in world and start to interact. Whether its the start of a major plot, or maybe just a big fair that everyone in the area is heading to, we will need some reason for all the characters to end up in the country, and even these few cities.

[kenod]

1 minute ago, MacThorstenson said:

Yep. Looks good.

I do have one concern about the story, and think that we need to iron it out before we start RPing, and that is interaction between the characters. The world is very big, and generally could be pretty widely spread out, so I think we will need something to make sure that our characters meet up in world and start to interact. Whether its the start of a major plot, or maybe just a big fair that everyone in the area is heading to, we will need some reason for all the characters to end up in the country, and even these few cities.

I think that depends on the plot we're going with. The magic academy would be pretty easy, it's located in a big city and cultural center already, and most serious mages would have a reason for going there. If we're placing the plot out in the world, rumors might work. For example, stories of a dangerous monster would probably attract a few people interested in it for various reasons.

[MacThorstenson he/him]

2 hours ago, kenod said:

I think that depends on the plot we're going with. The magic academy would be pretty easy, it's located in a big city and cultural center already, and most serious mages would have a reason for going there. If we're placing the plot out in the world, rumors might work. For example, stories of a dangerous monster would probably attract a few people interested in it for various reasons.

My main concern with the academy is that I'm not sure if most characters will want to use ritual magic, so if the only reason that characters meet up is because they are learning ritual magic, then it won't be all that useful.

I think that maybe we should wait for people to make their characters before trying to write up a plot to go in the world.

Edited March 11, 2019 by MacThorstenson