#worldbuidling

[elbiotipo]

I think the more grimdark and edgy you try to make your setting the more racist it will be. And I think it's an inevitable consequence of trying to make whole societies (cultures, civilizations, species, races) villains. The more you want to make "this culture is EVIL and everybody who lives them is EVIL and lives for WAR and CONQUEST and TORTURE"...

...you have to wonder, hey, if this civilization is so evil and only thinks about war and torture and kicking puppies, then where they get their food from? who builds their cities, or if they're (racist) savage nomads, their tools and who trains their animals? who raises their children and how? who keeps cultural practices of "being evil" alive? why hasn't their culture of backstabbing and rule of the strongest collapsed a thousand times already?

Basically, if you have beings that have a physical, natural existence, they need to eat, they need to have shelter, and to raise the next generation. And yes, even raising them communally or in hatcheries or whatever counts. You cannot have a whole civilization dedicated to being evil or even to war; for every soldier, there is someone carrying his supplies and making his weapons and a family at home. If we're talking about spiritual beings of pure evil, literal demons that don't need to eat or sleep or reproduce, that's another thing. But if we are talking about beings that live in the world, that are part of the physical world no matter whatever fantasy features or traits they have, that have societies and culture, then you have to wonder; where the food comes from, who raises the children, who makes the weapons, who trains the warriors yes but who trains the farmers, the toolmakers, who teaches the children to speak, who tells the stories.

This was the same problem that haunted Tolkien about his Orcs by the way, and you won't escape it if you think about it for more than 10 seconds. And you shouldn't escape it. Do you have a nation, culture, race, species, as "villains" in your world? Think about it. Think about it for more than 10 seconds.

[gravegrime]

Ancient guardian Been doing some tiny bits of Grimm Deeds worldbuilding lately

[readingreddingread]

I understand why people go for Ancient Roman looks for Valyria, it's the go to ancient empire for pseudo western medieval european settings AND the parallel with High Valyrian being like "classical" Latin as a language of known by the scholarly and/or refined etc, Bastard Valyrian's dialects being like the Romance languages, and being a Freehold instead of having a solo ruler with centralized power.

BUT

They rode dragons and the most powerful of their citizens were dragons riders so togas and flowy "classical" or classical inspired garb etc makes no sense to me. While yes wealth by showing off an excess of high quality textiles that aspect is reasonable but why not something hakama-like? Or fu penzi-ish? Pants=Dragonrider=Dragonlord=Power

[izkaboz]

strange vision animated under fugue state hazeworld induced sublimina. proxy fentlaid never seen to speak again. she only looks up, hoping that again she may gaze upon that lovely indescribable feelingstar.

[ranarh]

New GeniusLoci article!

Let's talk hospitals! For a fantasy world, GL can heal a lot. There are some worldbuilding theory thoughts in there too.

The illustration is one of my favourite I ever did for the setting, showing a redforester elf taking an antidote despite their multilayered armour/clothing getup.

Medicine – Genius Loci

Most people know their house medicine against everyday sicknesses and small injuries. For anything beyond, apothecaries provide sophisticate

[flawpeacock]

So uh......I accidentally sat down for two hours with Nasty! by byAstral blasting in my ears and created a whole new calender.

(It's still going btw, i realised I focus better with it) and @jerry-the-leech asked me if they could be added to the taglist and I was like...why the hell not.

So this...is a very very ambitious project, that I guess I'm doing. I'm gonna abandon my pantsy behaviour for this and start from the very bottom up, and when I say bottom, I mean I'm gonna make everything new. It's a second-world-based project, and so I need to make everything starting from geography, maps, religion, culture, people, economy, resources, etc., from the base up. I'm gonna resist the urge to "wing it" and burn myself out and never look at this again so I'll probably follow a painstaking calendar where i devote atleast like 30 minutes a day or 30-40 minutes every two days(depending on how busy I am(I'm still busy and this is a stupid project because a I'm stuck in the middle of a very tumultuous few months but yolo right)).

Anyways, the Header Is by me (using Canva), and the PFP is also by me (a random thing I just pulled out). Unfortunately, I can't draw, but I can do my best to explain.

Anyone interested in this long-form project is welcome to comment on this post to get added to the tag list. Thank you for being here, hope I persist!

[mythcreantsblog]

Bringing Necromancy to Life in Your Story

To bring back the magic, today's necromancers need fresh ideas and great execution.

As powerful representations of death itself, necromancers have always been the ultimate villains. Unfortunately, they’ve also been depicted so frequently that, like a revenant decaying to a mere skeleton, much of the magic is gone.

But don’t worry, necromancers never die forever! We just need to breathe them back to life with fresh ideas and unforgettable execution. Whether you’re a game master or a writer, here’s how to craft necromancy that impresses.

[bibibbon]

What MHA's lacks: world building part 2

I have already talked about this topic before but I mainly focused on the world building of Japan as a society itself .

In a series like MHA world building is something that is very important. Sadly, a lot of the world building we have is inconsistent and all

Now I wanted to talk more about the MHA world building outside of Japan. When it comes to world building outside of Japan all we have are the MHA movies (which are somehow canon but the timeline for them makes no sense to me) and the whole interaction with star and stripes/USA.

Obviously we were gonna get a look into heroics and heroes outside of Japan after the war arc (it was inevitable especially with Japans need for foreign help) but I can't help to say that the little amount of world building outside of Japan that we got was lacking to say the least.

America or star and stripes. It was obvious that we would be getting heroes from around the world but I really hated how the idea of America and American heroes was something that was heavily sterytopical (maybe Iam thinking too deep into it 🤷‍♀️) but I don't like how star and stripes legit had her costume based on the American flag (I know it's supposed to be like all might). To me star and stripes felt like such a rushed plot point who is just the female version of all might that lacks all the character depth and wasted potential that all might has. The idea of America actually having a military is very interesting but it's never expanded on why or how they have a military. How is a military army any different than quirked heroes? We just saw them operate various airships and that's it for them 🤷‍♀️. I personally think we should of gotten an idea or at least a view as to why there is a military for example, America has a military and heroes whereas Japan uses heroes as soldiers and entertainers. Star and stripes should of been introduced way earlier in the series because she is the number one in USA and everything about her is heavily inspired by all might so we could of seen bits of her after all mights retirement and whatever relationship she had with all might because everything about that plot point of foreign American military and heroes was so vague and needed expanding.

I-island. I love the concept of i-island even if it's introduced just in a movie (I think it should of been a canon manga plot point), if you think about it having an island that focuses on the creation and progression of technology and it being like a very high tech island is a very interesting idea. What type of Industries are in i-island? The population is well off due to the island being very neutral in political ideals and is considered a place of education and technology. You could of had it to be an area that has a very low crime rate because everyone is open to the same opportunities and the small population makes it so that people are very connected to eachother. I-island could also be a place where heroes are sent to train and usually go to find a support company to work with.

Other heroes. When it comes to the whole world of MHA there are a lot of heroes from many different places but I don't necessarily like their character design like is it only me who finds it weird that pro hero native (who is a Japanese citizen) has a hero costume that is of native Americans? Or when showing us a hero from Egypt their costume was a literal pharo?. I feel like horikoshi could of been more creative when it came to showing other heros form other parts of the world and their costumes. I am not totally against having heroes that share and represent parts of cultures but if it's done in a way where it's just them wearing a very sterytopical costume then what's the point ?!?!? Sure you can make a character who does wear a very sterytopical costume and profits off other peoples culture to show how hero society is messed up and actually critique something like that but we don't see that and I think that's wasted potential.

Political relations and political differences. Every country is bound to have a variety of different political relations and differences so this could be difficult to explore if you try and include every single place in the MHA world. However, the building up if the war arc and the aftermath we should of seen Japan's political relations with other countries. Did other countries offer aid in anyway? Did they send out something akin to peacekeepers to the field? Or something of the sort. Is there even a party or organisation that connects other countries together in a tien if crisis in MHA and did they refuse to help Japan because they feared AFO or something. I feel like this could of been an interesting plot point to explore but it's never mentioned best thing we get is one panel of a political saying something

Transfer students. I think it was a fantastic plot point to have pony as a transfer students in the heroics course but I just wish we got more of her. For example where did she live? How was her life before she came to Japan? How does she feel about everything? How was it for her and her family when it came to the war in Japan? Or how did they deal with the parent conference when she is a transfer student? Surprisingly, pony has more potential as a character and more plot points to explore than a lot of 1 A character but we don't get much of what goes on with her.