oozey mess
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Discoholic 🪩
macklin celebrini has autism
Xuebing Du
Doug Jones
Origami Around
titsay
$LAYYYTER
Sade Olutola
almost home
if i look back, i am lost
Jules of Nature
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Today's Document
Game of Thrones Daily
Keni
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
todays bird
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@auroraofinspiration
Fantasy/DND Battle stock anyone?
From our 2018 @kickstarter
Models: Me @GadgieCAT13 & @adorkastock
Photographer: Blue
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Salher fort gate, Sahyadri Mountains in Maharashtra, India
Please welcome Perucetus, the new - and largest- known archeoceti.
A whale of enormous proportions. While it's exact size and weight is certainly a matter of heated debates it was no doubt a really big boi. Here a quick sketch of it approaching a time traveler.
Doriath
Greater Sooty Gloor
“The Greater Sooty Gloor is notorious for frequenting massive old libraries. Like their smaller subspecies, Sooty Gloors hoard paper and scraps of books to build immense nests.
Their omnivorous diet allows them to have flexible sources of food. Often bullying the smaller Tufted Gloors, they tend to scavenge and steal food from them and other library-dwelling creatures”
Random Worldbuilding Questions
Are there any foods with symbolic meanings that are eaten on special occasions (e.g. katsudon for victory, or new years oranges for luck)? How did the tradition get started?
We all know about weddings and marriage, but are there any ceremonies that symbolically / legally / magically officialize a different type of relationship in your world’s culture? (Adoption, apprenticeship, friendship, etc.)
What’s a rule or social norm that is widely followed in theory, but in practice everyone knows it’s not a big deal and breaks it all the time?
Are there any trades or hobbies whose practitioners are stereotyped as weird or extraordinary? (E.g. the “mad hatter” trope.) Why? How true is this perception?
What are some cliches, tropes, and/or plots that commonly appear in stories written by your world’s inhabitants? What were they inspired by? Why are they popular?
What is a common way to subtly insult someone in your world, without crossing into overt rudeness? Gifting an item with negative connotations? Addressing them more familiarly or formally than normal? Backhanded compliments?
If you pulled a random average Joe off the streets of your world and asked them to draw a house, what would they draw? (Shape, roof style, position and number of windows, etc.)
Is there a place in your world that nobody has ever been to - the bottom of a cave, the moon, another dimension, etc.? How do people know it exists? Why haven’t they gone there? What do they believe it’s like, and how right/wrong are they?
What aesthetics are considered “advanced” or “futuristic” in your world - canvas wings, shiny chrome, smooth plastic? How has this changed over time?
What’s a fun fact about your world that you as the worldbuilder are dying to share, but nobody ever thinks to ask?
Quick worldbuilding hack, if you want to make a coherent political system for your fantasy world:
Basically, between the fall of Rome and early modern times, in Europe* most political organization wasn't actually kingdoms ruled by One True King like it's usual in fantasy, but something like this:
Feudalism: here, the center of power was not the nation (there was little concept of such thing) or the state, and not even the King, but the landowners (from kings to dukes to counts...) and their network of vassalages to each other. There were no "countries" but rather hereditary titles, and the people who held them. There was little of a true state besides what individual rulers did; they didn't even have formal armies as such, but rather the vassals who provided them, they and could have multiple allegiances. Examples are of course the Holy Roman Empire (neither holy, etc. etc.) France (note that the 100 Years War was a dispute about titles rather than France vs. England), Spain (actually a bunch of kingdoms and crowns rather than a country), etc...
"Empires": A state where a central goverment exerts power over other territories and peoples. These are rather familiar to us, because a formal state exists here, and the ruler is more powerful and often does have a standing arming and administration instead of relying on vassals. Here, there is a bureacracy and a claim to rule a territory, and while they might have vassals and prominent artistocratic families (everyone did) their administration was state-based, not allegiance based. The Roman Empire is the most imperial empire, as well as its cringefail successor the Byzantine Empire, but note that the great Islamic empires also had this kind of administration, with governors appointed and confirmed by the imperial court.
City-States: Basically a powerful city (though they were often the size of small towns, still, very rich) ruled by a local aristocracy, sometimes hereditary, sometimes elected from a few families or guilds, or a mix of both, and in some cases ruled by religious authorities. These could be independent or organized in alliances, but were often vassals of more powerful goverments such as above. Cities are in many way the building brick of larger states; of note, in the Ancient Mediterranean before Rome conquered it all, leagues of city-states were the main powers. Medieval and Early Modern independent city states were the Italian city states of course, and a famous league was the Hansa (many of its members themselves vassals of other powers)
Tribes and Clans: Every culture is different with this, but basically here the centre of power is the relationships between families and kinship. If this sounds familiar to Feudalism, you've been paying attention; Feudalism is what happened when the Roman empire and administration fell, and it was replaced by landowners and their ties of vassalage and allegiances.
Now, besides the history lesson, why is this important? Because there are reasons why rulers had their power, and you should know that.
A king never ruled alone. He was only the head of nobles tied by vassallage (feudalism), or the head of a inherited state bureaucracy and army ("empire"). If you killed the king, another one would rise from the prominent families. Often by bloody civil wars or conquest yes, but the system overall would stay. A king did not reign by its own power or virtue, but because the system itself supported him, and of course, he maintained the system.
A new king who wants to replace the bad old king (a common fantasy storyline) needs to also deal with the allegiances of all its vassals (who would probably rather kill him and take the throne themselves) or build a bureaucracy and an army, supremely expensive endeavors in those times, which took decades if not centuries to build. In fact, the Byzantines and the Arabs inherited most of their state aparatus, in one way or the other, from the Romans.
This is also why these systems lasted so long, too. The appearance of modern republics and other systems of goverment needed the coordination of people and revolutions that did not just kill the king, but also replace it with something else, and for that you need literacy, economic changes, an empowered populace... But that's for another time.
I hope this is fucking helpful because I don't want to spell allegiance ever again.
*I would love to do more about goverments outside Europe, especially Precolombine American ones like the redistrubitionist state-based economy of the Incas, or the Mesoamerican city-states. But that's for another time.
orcs orcs orcs! Some of my ocs from an original worldbuild. In this worldbuild, in order for a new orc to be born, a creature must be hunted and its blood used in a ritual. The resulting orc is blessed with the strengths and abilities of the creature which helped to make them.
Are Animals Becoming Extinct in Fantasy Novels?
Recently, I read this post titled “Animals have been taken off in novels since 1835. Is fiction undergoing its own extinction event?” which talks about a study that found that since 1835, the use of wild animals in fiction has dropped drastically.
Many are blaming this “slow extinction” on modern societies disconnect to nature. After all, not everyone spends their days outside, so they might not notice mice, birds, or even the insects at their feet. If they do not think about animals in their daily life, why would they think about them while writing?
That is the theory, at least.
It is worthwhile pointing out what several other writers and readers are; there are plenty of animals in children’s fiction. That is true, but what about young adult to adult fantasy? Since that is what I personally write, that is what I wanted to talk about.
Just going off what books I think of first, it seems like often in fantasy novels, the only prey animals (like deer, squirrels, or rabbits) that we see are after nearly always during or after they are hunted. Then there is the complete lack of mosquitos, leaches, biting ants, and other annoying creatures.
Sometimes, there is a mention of the sound of birds singing, but rarely ever are there any details of the birds or what they are doing. Where are the ducks and swans on the lakes? Where are the birds building nests?
Now you may be going “What is the point? Why should I care?” and I get that, but by eliminating these creatures, your novels could be losing a sense of realism.
For example, in Stephen Kings The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon — which I argue is a light fantasy story, not a horror story — has a girl is lost in the woods and stalked by a creature. Interestingly, even most survival books fail to mention animals apart from for food, but Stephen King did not do that. He had deer, water bugs skittering across ponds, and even wasps that attack the main character. This added a sense of reality to the novel. It was not just a forest with some trees and plants, it was a forest filled with life, and that can be dangerous for anyone, let alone a young girl.
So, go ahead, raise the mood with your characters. If they are miserable, make them more so by having the mosquitos bite at them day and night or have them step in a anthill. If they are happy, they could watch a mother bird feeding its young or a swan rubbing necks with its partner.
Adding more hints of nature could not only amplify the mood, but it could also make your forests seem more real.
I was inspired by @jezifster's recent question about non-gendered royal titles, and I put together this graphic to serve as a jumping off point for people writing monarchies in SFF !
Obviously this non-exhaustive list contains mainly western titles, all in English. Feel free add any on additional gender neutral terminologies that you can think of, including those from different languages and cultures!
A small addition: I'm not a linguist or historian and put this list together based on some quick googling! While you're free to flex the usage and meanings of these words however you choose, researching the real-world context of each term before using them in your own writing is a best practice.
Places you should add to your little town/city in your fantasy world!!
Post offices. Wild, I know. But give me the unhinged kind. Pingeons and little postal dragons all over the place. You enter. The most disgusting smell fucking assaults your nostrils. You know what it is. Letter in hand, you go up to the counter. The postal worker is just a slightly bigger pigeon. You shed a tear.
PLAYGROUNDS!! Create the most dangerous kinds of playgrounds, the ones suburban moms would TRIP if they ever saw one. Monkey bars that are way too tall, swings that go full circle... The metal slide stays the same, it's already painful enough.
PARKS!! MAKE IT ALIVE!! Show people going on walks, reading beneath trees. C'mon most of them are already hundred years old (And are going to die after that CR 15 creature wrecks the town) anyways!! Show couples and picnics, show a family enjoying the sunday, give me someone picking flowers for their loved ones.
A bakery! Do you know how much these places are underrated? And do you know how much plot potential they have? Every good story starts with food poisoning or granny's recipe! Give me a place your players/readers are going to treat like home and, for once, it's not a tavern or a guild.
Government buildings! Give me a town hall that has a kilometric line in front of it. Give me a registry that is as old as this town. Give me police stations! Give me courtrooms! Make one of your players get arrested and now all of the party has to go through burocracy like a bunch of normal people!
(Who am I kidding? You don't need to make them get arrested. They are going to do that for you.)
Touristic attractions! Give me a full-on statue of the country's leader! Give me museums! Give me streets, ruins and whatnot that attract thousands of tourists everyday! Give me an annoying city guide that tries to get the party's attention everytime!
Magazine stands! Magazines don't exist? Newspaper stands! From the Queen's Journal to the most questionable new piece of Fox's Tailtracker, you have it all! Make your players doubt what's actually happening, sprinkle a little fake news... Or is it fake at all?
...Toy stores. OK HEAR ME OUT. Make magic toys; miniature skyships that actually fly, metal toy dragons that expel fire, little wands that make little light spells, wooden creatures that can move and make noises... Make children happy! And your players too because they will waste their money on these stuff.
Instrument store!! Make your bards happy with special instruments or just weird ones! Give me a battle in one of those that is just filled with funny noises and the worst battle soundtrack ever!!
Not exactly a place but... Cleaning carts!!! Show me people cleaning the streets, picking up the trash, cutting trees!! Make the town look clean!! Give me an old man that is really proud of his work!!!
(or ways to make your players feel even worse when the villain destroys the town later on :) )
This came across my Facebook feed, felt I’d share it.
One thing I didn't expect from my new worldbuilding book is the author, roughly my dad's age, including his opinions on furries
I'm liking this guy more and more
I have a new favorite author.
0.0 what’s the book OP?
@mageless ok admittedly I cheated a bit; the screenshots are from three separate books by the same author, Mark Rosenfelder (I'm reading them all at once). The first one is from The Planet Construction Kit, the second - from The Language Construction Kit, and the third - from The Conlanger's Lexipedia. Basically I'm a hopeless nerd but I've these are actually quite accessible even without prior linguistic/worldbuilding knowledge!
Edit: @gods-no-longer-tread-here @rjwps @asgardian-viking @whoreslut-supreme @carry-on-my-wayward-wuffles and to anyone else asking (in retrospect I really should've included this in the original post, heh)
https://www.artstation.com/mangotino
Holy shit, this is the most brilliant and poignant representation of a usable tattoo weapon. I love it.
Anyway here's some additions from the Maasai and Kikuyu, two grassy plain-dwelling groups from Eastern Africa that I think count as unfuckwithable
Feel like Poland should be included since we're literally called "people of the fields" according to the etymology of Poland.
Also look at her GO
I’m Métis, here’s some of ours! You’ll notice it looks remarkably similar to the above.
We also have some less intricate clothing (if it looks a bit Victorian to you - that’s pretty much the right era for most of this!)
Can’t believe no one’s done it yet I will be the person to add the cowboys: Latin American focus.
Here is the Chilean huaso:
Gauchos, from primarily Argentina where they’re a large national symbol close to the level of cowboys in the US. Also gauchos are in Uruguay. Their pants are called bombachas and the other garment wrapped around them are called chiripas. They work in grasslands called pampas, known for being really fertile:
While they’re not as dressed up as the others or have as prominent of a culture, for a broader Latin American cowboy context, I feel like also adding llaneros, who are from Colombia and Venezuela, in the llanos region, a type of tropical grassland similar to the pampas, hence the name llanero. Pampas get annual flooding and these guys would go barefoot a lot, and you can see that the stirrup on the horse’s saddle is really different than what you’re probably used to seeing, to accommodate for that, which is what I want to point out as an aspect of plains cultures developing clothing/accessories/tools to suit the environment.
Cowboy culture happened wherever Spanish colonial influence and grassland biomes came together. They differ based on the grasslands having different climates (ex tropical in South America), and the local indigenous influence (ex, backtracking to gauchos, they would use this tool called bolas to catch animals, which were basically two balls tied to a string that you threw and it spun around an animals legs, and were an indigenous invention):
I would love to keep posting cowboy dress lol but will stick to the post’s theme of grassland of course.
Adding to the post, I, hereby, present people of Kalash and Chitral:
Chitral means ‘field’ in the native language Khowar. Both Chitralis and people of Kalash are known to be indigenous people of Asia.
all the tips I found for drawing a fantasy map are like :) “here’s a strategy to draw the land masses! here’s how to plot islands!” :) and that’s wonderful and I love them all but ??? how? do y'all decide where to put cities/mountains/forests/towns I have my map and my land but I’m throwing darts to decide where the Main Citadel where the Action Takes Place is
okay so i know i said most of this in the replies but it might be easier to actually reblog and say stuff instead lmao
Cities - go near water! freshwater lakes and rivers (rivers especially) are the best places for cities because A) source of water and B) travel and trade is much easier cus you can put your boats like right there. Basically ever relevant city ever was built on a lake or a river.
for rivers in general - because gravity, rivers run from mountains (forming from melting snow and ice (this is why they get fat in spring–more stuff melting)) to lakes/ocean where they can empty out (and even lakes will have rivers leading out that eventually get to the ocean), which can help when mapping out where those start and end. rivers are also much thinner and faster in steeper elevations and very slow and wide when the land is flat
mountains - i like to think of what the tectonic plates look like because that’s what makes mountains! mountains are also never standalone they’re always in mountain ranges (archipelagos are really just underwater mountain ranges babey). a cool trick I like to do is occasionally separate mountain ranges across continents, because over time the tectonic plates shifted and literally split the range in half. These mountains are really old tho so they’ve eroded and therefore it makes them smaller and rounder (like the appalachians) as opposed to relatively young mountain ranges like the rocky mountains which have taller and sharper peaks
Another mountain trick: if your mountains run along the ocean, the ocean side of the mountains will get a LOT of rain while the other side will be very dry–almost desert-like, in fact. think of temperate rainforests in British Columbia vs the drier conditions in the canadian prairies
forests - depends on how warm the area might be. coniferous forests are found further north (before you hit the tree line, and then it’s only tundra onwards) but as you head south you get leafier trees, and the leaves tend to get larger too
If you think about general elevation too, you’ll have places that might be swampy (wet + lower). if your world has an ice age like we did, then glaciers may have carved the land, leaving piles of soil in the south that was left when the ice receded and places where the bedrock has been bared north of that (like the Canadian Shield in Canada–the reason we see that is because of the glaciers)
You might also have a land that’s dotted in a shitton of freshwater lakes as well because the meltwater filled the holes that the glaciers scraped out (this is why canada has so many goddamn lakes)
and if the ice age was more recent than it was in our world, then you might not even have the forest re-growth and it could be a lot of open plains
tl;dr i like to think of major climate events that might have also shaped the land on top of some basic rules
The Artifexian has an entire series on building your world from literally the stars down and then the ground up.
All my worldbuilding videos
Though, for fantasy, you can make the world operate on entirely different principles:
With that done, the actual topic of city placement can be covered by videos like this:
Or
Once you have your places, if you want help naming them in realistic ways, this video can help:
This one is on architecture, which is definitely a subset of cities:
But for a more relevant practical guide on making settlements realistic:
Here’s a quick guide for making demographics:
holy shit?
