g0re you should put some stuff here about what you're writing it sounds really cool and I want to know more :3
nnghh i shold, i've tried many a time to actually organize all my shit into one easily digestable megadoc that i can just throw at people instead of like. actually doing a proper elevator pitch but i still have yet to complete it.
in the meantime though as for what the world actually IS - a fantasy setting defined by how much of it is dominated by these big ol' spooky woods. This region is absolutely massive, very difficult to navigate, chock full of magic, and incredibly hostile to anyone that dares to make a living within its trees! I've named it Fortune, since Fortune favors the bold.
Due to time constraints I'm not gonna go into a full history of expeditions and settlement efforts, but the TL;DR is that by the time in which the story takes place, methods of crossing the woods are in existence but they still act as a very concrete barrier for getting around. They're much more manageable in daylight and with a light source, but if you have any trip lasting longer than a day you absolutely need to have a safe place to stop at. There's a ton of little towns and safe havens along trade routes and foot paths, but getting there is often a tall order.
There's two distinct 'regions' to be concerned with, separated into two halves - the more established east half of the island, where the woods are far less dense, and where the current ruling body alongside most of the island-continent's population resides, and the settlements of the west half which are almost entirely restricted to the western coast and wherever else there's enough open area from the woods. Most of the story will take place on this western half, and more specifically in a few towns closer to the coast.
How the balance of power shakes up is a bit confusing to describe, but basically, it's that these western establishments are self-sufficient. They don't have their own full on mini-governments or kingdoms, but they also don't really answer to a higher rank. How I'd describe it is more or less like that mid-early period in Britain's colonization of America - *technically*, everyone here has an allegiance to the Crown, but who's really keeping track at this point? They're on the other side of [the ocean/the woods] and the guy that's supposed to be enforcing that doesn't really do much, might as well just go about ourselves and tend to our farms and businesses. That's more or less the crux of Fortune as a worldbuilding project, and probably the most well-established part of it so far. I'm still trying to settle on other incredibly important stuff.
Consistent technology is hard to establish - I love the aesthetics of...say, 'rustic rust', I'd call it, but I'm still trying to better define it. It's infuriating, but my biggest influences in terms of visuals are HIGHLY anachronistic in how they combine all their elements together. I would LOVE to have something like a technology level around Amulet's or Bones', or something where I could reasonably get away with mixing sword and spear with manual-action firearms and steel plants and windmills and automatons and galleys and whatnot, but i'm still unsure as to how I would go about mixing other technologies in there. Like, fuckin I dunno, pick some 'modern' tech out of a hat. How weird is it to say that I don't want cars but I would like factories to exist. I can't even give an upper or lower limit in terms of our own world's time, so I really need to get particular with it. it's not that i'm trying to like, adhere to hard and rigid worldbuilding, I just want to be able to describe it more efficiently than I just did lmao
Magic is a little bit more easy to say - a softer magic system, but with some stipulations in order to better create narrative stakes and such, like the typical 'equivalent exchange', channeling rules, magic sinks and magic 'batteries', 'healing' magic can't fix, it can only speed up the process, yada yada.
There are a couple of interesting facets, though - for instance, magic is so goddamn prevalent on Fortune on account of those spooky woods that actually doing magic is super fucking easy, like a toddler could do it without much prompting. There's a million different ways to do it - runes and lexigraphy, spoken and written words, waggling your hands in a specific way while thinking really hard, or pitching a funny rock at some idiot's head. The caveat is that while it's easy to *do*, it's actually pretty difficult to *learn*. If you're seeking a career path that takes even the slightest bit of magical proficiency, you need to be educated on magic. I've equated it to learning an instrument - anyone can pick up a trumpet and hold a note, but you need to learn how to play arrangements and songs to actually do anything with that trumpet, and if you want to be able to improv you have to practice a whole lot more.
I also don't have much in the way of actual fauna and flora, and I would prefer to trend away from having humans as default or of a binary with like, 'sentient monsters' being the other half. that is BORING. the one interesting thing so far is that i made some guys that look like typical fantasy ass elves with long ears and freaky eyes, but they're actually just...offshoots of merfolk that just started doin' it on land. if they get over-exposed to magic, they'll re-develop those fishy bits.
As for anything else...I lost track. I'm sure I missed something important to explain, so when I remember (and when it is not 4 am) I will add it. questioms are cool too ig although i don't know how comprehensively i'll be ablw to answer
