#wbj2020

[worldbuildingjune]

World Building June 2020

Hey there everyone! I know I know I’m a bit late announcing this year’s World Building June! But considering our world is falling apart, I had a lot of fish to fry. BUT! This just means that we have all the better motivation to world build this year! Considering the outside world is more or less shut down. You’ve heard it a thousand times, but I hope you’re all safe and that you’re taking care of yourselves.

Since I’m awakening last minute, I don’t have too many bonus plans for this year’s WBJ but it’s a new decade and maybe it’s a good chance to take things back to basics! What is World Building June? World building June, or WBJ for short is a month where we focus in on building those worlds that have been banging around in our head! This means putting the world to paper though. This can be done in many ways! Writing in a journal, creating art, making tumblr posts, starting a wiki, making audio logs to be found by an adventurer in the nuclear post-apocalypse to provide exposition, whatever works! As long as you can reference back to your work later and keep building upon it. What sorts of worlds are we building? Any worlds really. Fantasy, sci fi, alternate history, AUs. They can also be for all sorts of purposes like tabletop games, novels, games, comics, fanfiction, etc. This is more of a month to celebrate the concept of crafting worlds in general and sometimes what can help someone develop an caste of elves who live in sand dunes can help you find the missing link your greaser vampire biker gang.

How exactly do we participate? There’s no real right or wrong way to do this. You can work on it by yourself and talk with folks also working by themselves to throw ideas at each other. You can post on tumblr using the #WBJ tag. You can join our Discord and discuss world building ideas with others. As long as you’re building then I’m happy. I’ll also be posting prompts to help kickstart world building ideas, or to help you get unstuck when you’re stuck on what to do next. If you have further questions, shoot us an ask, but till then HAPPY BUILDING!

[formatastable]

Day 9: If someone asks you if you’re a god...

Nominally, the dominant faith of Ues is Sohnism: a monotheistic religion with its start in the coastal city-state of Metria. Over the course of thousands of years, and a fair number of holy wars during the early days of duchies and kingdoms, Sohnism spread along the Midland Sea, and from there both north and south to almost completely saturate the continent. To put it simply, Sohnists believe that the sun itself is some form of deity, and that it takes a direct role in the affairs of the inhabitants of Creation. 

Now, you might have noticed that Sohnism is nominally the dominant faith. I say that because while most people are Sohnists, not everyone is the same kind of Sohnist. Over the course of history, Sohnism has splintered into over a dozen varieties, some so wildly different that it’s difficult to imagine they came from the same base.

For reference, the original form of Sohnism, sometimes called Old Sohnism or Traditional Sohnism, is still practiced in Metria and its colonies. In this form, the sun is an all-seeing, all-knowing god who directs Humans with messages in their sleep, then watches them during the day to see who understands his words, and who acts on them. Those who consistently do are welcomed to his solar paradise when they die, while those who understand his words and refuse to act are forever damned to wander the cold blackness of space, eventually becoming the stars we see at night. There’s a saying in Metria that out of the entire population, only one Metratic person per day will understand and act on Sohn’s words spoken to them the night before. A lightly more cynical version of this saying continued by claiming that the head of the High Priest of Metria has never been that person.

Aquiland follows what is known as Reformist Sohnism, which developed as a way to integrate modern knowledge of the sun and the rest of the sciences into the religion. In Reforming Sohnism, the sun is a conduit through which Sohn views Creation. They still believe that Sohn sends them messages in their dreams, but in this case these messages are more of tests to see who is ready for the responsibility of following his orders. Those who understand and don’t act aren’t considered damned, but instead simply unready. While Reformist Sohnism started in Xerstra, it quickly spread to the Kingdom of Aquiland and its vassals, and remained the dominant religion there after the revolution.

Shapechangers, by and large, do not believe in Sohnism. In fact, most are agnostic. This is due to two factors: the feral, pre-colonialism Shapechangers weren’t civilized enough to consider an organized religion; and no Uesean religion explicitly covers the existence of Shapechangers . Some apply labels to them as Demons or Spirits, but these depictions are hardly flattering. Shapechangers did learn one important fact from organized religion, though.

The fact that Shapechangers bound to wooden stakes cannot survive being burned alive.

[spaceandfluff]

World Building June #4: History of Vulkur

The following text is documented from the Song of Swords, a time containing the written works of many Vul, Aeis, and Midlin historians upon how the world came to be.

ERA 0, THE OBSIDIAN SEA

“In ages untold, long before the first dreams of creation lay the vast Obsidian Sea above us. Forever unchanging and truly devoid of light. At the dawn of our history, all gods drifted as bodiless spirits moved by the currents of the Sea. As fate would have it, the gods of our world met amongst a great field of debris cast amidst the great sea. To create a stable world of their own, they came to agreement upon shaping a world. Our world was dark and shapeless as the gods crafted it and the planes of Earth, Fire, Water, and Air that fed into the shapeless Vulkur and gave it form and stability.”

ERA 1, THE GODLANCE

“the world was taking form, and the gods began to divide the myriad lands between themselves. The Vul deities claimed the plains and hills, the Aeis deities claimed the deserts, the Midlin deity claimed the marshes, the Urk deities claimed the forests, and the giant deities claimed the far north. But as they began to give the world more unique and precise a shape, the Godlance fell from the now star-spotted depths of the Obsidian Sea. It struck the world and nearly cleaved it in two, almost destroying it wholly before it had even began. But the gods, managed to combine their strength and keep the world whole. Even with their power, they did not have the ability to remove the lance, and thus it came to find its home through the heart of Vulkur. The Godlance did not bear our world ill, however, as it’s strange and unique energies began to fill the world with life. Where slivers and shards hovered above, grasses sprouted and trees grew. The lance’s tips froze the poles, but cooled them to create winters and temperate woodlands.”

ERA 2, THE ZAMETH

“A strange and primordial race, mortal beings of godly power we know as the Zameth came unto our young world. The first peoples had not even learned to sow seeds or bake bricks when the Zameth swam from the depths of the Obsidian Sea and constructed grand monuments and cities, with some standing to this day. In the species’s great power they brought many strange and wonderful artifacts that spawned new plant and animal life. And beyond the godly elemental planes, they crafted a fifth. The plane of Technology. A plane made not of elemental essence, but of the raw dreams and thoughts to create and invent. They had a particular interest in the Godlance, perhaps seeing it with some divine calling. It very well could have been something lost to them they sought to reclaim. But quite strangely, centuries before the first people, the Zameth vanished. All they left was their architecture and technology, but not a single remnant form of a deceased Zameth remains. It is unknown if they did not bury their dead or if they all left the world in the blink of an eye.”

ERA 3, PRESENT DAY

“In all our histories and times of ancient times, our time under the many stars of the Obsidian Sea has not been long. We are young and, by a great will, are driven to venture beyond what we no. To seek answers to our world from our gods, our world, and those who came before. We remain in this age with many questions and few answers, and surely we will only wish to learn more with each answer we gain. But truly, can we ever know enough of our world and the many sights that lie even beyond our home?”

[randomly-aware-memories]

Day 1: A Cursed City

You were a god once.

Of course, you had no concept of such a thing as the divine. You simply were, that was enough. On the other hand, you did know that the way they belonged to you differed from the way you belonged to them.

Domestication is an odd process. It always works both ways and sometimes it is hard to know which side it started from.

You were a city as well.

No contradiction here, those ideas go hand in hand like unashamed lovers. Urbanity is divinity in its modern sense and you had nothing to fear from the former holders of that title. Neither soil nor wind gifted like you, neither of them responded.

You did not lure them in, those people. You did not have to, they were drawn by your very existence, by your voice and then by how it filled the holes your roots broke into their souls. And they became you, parts of you, more and more in number as in substance. Trees and even fields made room for houses, palaces and huts alike, for plazas and parks, markets and schools. Streets, so white it should have been obvious from the start that the stones they were paved with used to be bones.

You sprawled, your flesh a mixed material piece of art and thievery.

They asked you to console the sun so it gave room for the night and they built you a temple between the mirrors. You answered and they listened. They sang and you devoured. It was a time of miracles and friends and slaves and it was wondrous.

And then you died.

Far too fast for you to notice. You had more than one scale of consciousness, though. You could have noticed. But you sprawled too far. So you fell, felt, it might have been pain, and what you had left for instinct lashed out.

And out of your mingled ashes, they rose again. Out of broken streets and bones, out of dust and desperation and spite, they rebuilt themselves. A city as much as you and a god in only mockery. But you did not see for now you were dead and your flesh of someone else.

You were alive once. And nothing that was, is ever, truly gone.

 ***

The region of the Mourning Sun is a place where spirits live behind the mirrors and people are proud to wear more than one face. Out of their city states, the Cursed City is an apostate as it killed its god in self defense. Not just despite it, it is thriving.

[rovlemhage]

World Building June Day Three

Who lives in your world.

Humanity still exists in the borders fall world and it eventually regrows into what it once was and surpasses it. But it’s still the same general people, and the same problems and solutions with perhaps a few words swapped to better fit the changed world. Culture has taken a huge hit, but does start to recover, and new cultures are born and grow out of the ashes of the old.

There is one kind of interesting current, one of the eras where they’ve started to explore deep space. One colony is founded by and for people who wish to live life free of the wild magic that had flooded Earth. They maintain decent relations with the main faction of humanity and most don’t outright hate the Twisted by the magic but they are fairly limited in where and how far away from the space centers they are allowed to go without escort or giving up their powers. For their long term stay.

The Twisted is usually used to refer to human’s who have been touched/twisted by the wild magic. But it could be used to refer to anything. Sentient, animal, plant or inanimate touched by the magic. But usually it will refer to anything sentient(even if only just barely anymore) that has mutations provided by the magic. Beyond the trait of being twisted by the magic it is basically a grab bag with little unifying traits. But there are a few common trends which I’ll discuss.

The most common is that the twisted tend to be fairly adventurous and this is either driven by just a strong interest in the unknown. Or a drive to try and find or develop new mutations that either work with the ones they have or maybe they are a mutation trader and they trade mutations by the way of using purge to pull some or all of the mutations out of other twisted and then can sell or trade them with others. I will cover purge probably when we get to magic in further detail.

Some of the twisted seek to explore the new world they’ve woken up to. By which I mean before the fall they might have been some kind of animal, maybe a plant in a garden or even possibly a rock and now suddenly their small or even non existent world has suddenly expanded into full on sentience and they are trying to discover everything.

And of course you have some seeking to go the other way, to give up their sentience and to live as the new kind of animal they exist as.

There are some who seek to master the wild magic and become mages, and others who seek to banish the magic from Earth and try to return to the world they once knew.

Some don’t even care too much about their magically altered selves and just live in the new normal being traders, travelers or maybe even farmers. Each twisted is after all their own person with their own goals. As diverse as humanity was before the borders fell, just with more arms and much longer lives.

Going back to humanity for a bit there are a few larger cities growing in the main era but for the most part it’s still smaller towns and caravans are mostly still using pack animals or just walking. The  Various Cults of Ford and other tech focused groups are starting to really reintroduce vehicles into general use. And of course if you need if you need to cross the land once known as the United States there is always the Screamer Express.

[paradise-tourism]

WBJ2020 - milkbeasts

appearance - quadruped with soft short fur, commonly white with pastel browns but come in a range of colors. the legs are long and the neck is tall, to allow the animal to eat leaves and fruits from tall trees. males grow (relatively) small antlers to spar with. babies have spots and stripes that fade when they mature.

environmental niche - found wild in the untamed wilderness outside of Treat. escaped livestock can sometimes be found in other areas, but they can only spread in areas that have a lot of vegetation. the jungles outside of Bonsai are a place where wild milkbeasts have been spotted, though they’re noticably taller than usual in that area...

societal relation - domesticated for livestock. their large and tall bodies provide a lot of meat, and they produce a lot of milk. some farms in Treat have been known to feed their milkbeasts very specific fruit diets, which influences the flavor of the milk (and the meat, to a lesser degree, but there are definitely food snobs who specialize in analyzing the fruit-tinged steaks).

[worldbuildingjune]

2020 World Building June Prompt List

When building your world it’s easy to run yourself into a corner and not be sure what to flesh out next. For that purpose we’ve provided a list of prompts to get the noodle going! Remember you’re not obligated to fulfill every prompt or stick to the prompts. Building is building, but if you’re able to answer all these questions then there’s a good chance that you’ll at the very least have a solid foundation to build further.

1. Tell us about your world. 2. What's the Geography of your world? 3. Who lives in your world? 4. What's its history? (How did it come to be?) 5. What sorts of civilizations and architecture fill your world? 6. How does gender & sexuality work in your world? 7. How does the economy work in your world? 8. Who rules in your world? 9. What religion and cosmology exists in your world? 10. What traditions are observed in your world? 11. What's language like in your world? 12. What fauna inhabit your world? 13. What flora covers your world? 14. What do people eat in your world? 15. What technology is used in your world? 16. What magic exists in your world? 17. What's medicine and healthcare like in your world? 18. What is clothing and fashion like in your world? 19. How are wars fought in your world? 20. What sorts of weapons & armor are used in your world? 21. What do people do for work in your world? 22. What do people do for fun in your world? 23. What's the sky like in your world? 24. What places are still unexplored in your world? 25. What do people carry with them on a daily basis in your world? 26. What sorts of art exist in your world? 27. How do people get around in your world? 28. Who's important in your world? 29. How do people communicate with each other in your world? 30. What is the cycle of life and death in your world?

[worldbuildingjune]

Day 1: Tell us about your world

Welcome to World Building June! A little late in the day posting this but my house was an oven up till just a few minutes ago.

The first prompt is regarding the general idea of your world. This can be an elevator pitch, a thesis, an idea, essentially laying out the heart and soul of what you want your world to be about.

An obvious way to go about this prompt is to define the genres that your world fits into. A sci-fi horror? A fantasy adventure romcom? A Tokusatsu cosmic horror? Maybe the genre your world takes place in can’t be defined so neatly and you need to define the themes that pump through its blood such as hope, despair, justice, oppression, resistance, etc.

Giving your world a name can also help. Sometimes the obvious route is to just name your setting after the actual name of the planet or continent it takes place on, but sometimes a setting takes place after the main story that it tells. If you’re not sure at this point though, a codename always works.

Also just talking generally about your world a bit, maybe talking about an exciting conflict, or some ideas you want to explore with it can help folks get an idea of what you’re working with.

This is the first prompt mostly because it establishes a foundation for your work. It is both so you can show others your world and so you can look back at it whenever you feel lost about what your world is about. If you don’t know what decision to make when building up a certain section, maybe look at the genre or themes and ask yourself “What element supports the genre/theme most effectively?” Or even “What subverts the expectations of this genre so I can surprise people?” If you create a strong vision here, then you will never be lost.

Now get building!