It could range from cartoony villains with curly mustaches who threaten to destroy a planet with ridiculous oversized dieselpunk inventions, or it could be a group of young kids who love to have fun and pull pranks. Anyone who likes to have wacky effects on the world, plot-wise, history-wise, or elsewise.

My own example will be in the comments, should you choose to read it.

My character is max gilbert comes from the species (As I say in the previous post) the kharkans he was worked in apex industries as aerodynamics engineer and forced to be a astronaut and became a police officer. he constructed the combat inspection vehicle with a helping hand of the lamborghini and created a technological combat suit to save humans from most criminals arround the Universe. But my Description is bad and need help to upgrade this.

How would you guys model sensing killing intent as show in most Maghuas/Anime or even the pressure felt when meeeting more powerful beings?

Any game that already does this?

I'm writing a world where all Abrahamic religions appeared when King Solomon attempted to ascend to Godhood with the "Shem HaMephorash" (in Jewish mythology, the full name of god is 72 letters and knowing it gives you part of his power), when the attempt failed it unleashed the 72 Goetic demons, plunging the world into chaos. This marked the end of the Age of Heroes and the beginning of the Age of Dread.

I'm mainly focused on writing the big 3 (Islam, Christianity and Judaism) and I finished two, but due to lack of knowledge I am having hard time writing how Islam evolved in this grimdark world, so I'm asking for suggestions/ help or advice on good sources, the world got HEAVY inspiration from 40k, Trench crusade and chainsaw man.

this is what I got on the first 2 if anybody got corrections or anything else ill take that happily:

Judaism

Devastated by the death of King Solomon, the remnants of the Jewish faith retreated to their great temple and fortress cities—Jerusalem, Jericho, Hebron, Shomron, Beit El, and Shechem. The High Priest and the Kohanim, powerless to elicit a response from God, resorted to drastic measures. They carved the Shem HaMephorash into Solomon's corpse, transforming him into a divine avatar. Now, the Eternal King Solomon sits upon the sacred throne of Israel, a silent guardian of his people.

Under the leadership of the High Priest, the Kohanim empower the Shomerim, humans who take the Pact of Solomon. This covenant grants them access to the divine magic of the Kabbalah, a radiant holy fire far more powerful than hellfire, but at a grave cost: the magic slowly kills its users. The Kohanim also create Golems, colossal stone and marble guardians that protect the fortress cities. Beyond their walls, death reigns.

Christianity

Christianity fractured into two major branches—Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy—following the unleashing of the demon hordes.

In Rome, the Bishops infused the Holy Spirit into the Divina Machina, sacred weapons maintained by the Pope and Archbishops. While these weapons are divine, their wielders, the Inquisitors, remain human—fallible, corruptible, but replaceable. This system allows for a larger army of Inquisitors, each one able to take up the divine weapon of a fallen comrade.

In the East, the Patriarch of Constantinople embraced a different strategy. Through rituals of faith, the souls of 100 innocents are sacrificed to forge a single Eastern Crusader or Inquisitor. These warriors are immortal, incorruptible, and incapable of sin, bound to a higher moral law. They fight only with melee weapons, their strength unmatched by any other. However, their numbers are few, and the cost of creating one is immeasurable. Each lost warrior is irreplaceable, and their relic weapons are sacred treasures of the church.

The division between East and West came to a head over the question of which was more important: quantity or quality. This philosophical rift ultimately caused the Great Schism.

I tried to use google-fu to find some resources about this, but the closest I could find is a list on Wikipedia of fictional materials in, like, star wars and lord of the rings, so I wanted to ask here. I'm looking for examples of materials from a variety of cultures, folklore and mythologies, whether they be entirely fictional, names for materials we better understand today and call something else, or even just materials that are very unique to a specific culture or something along those lines, all as inspiration for fantasy materials. As a few examples of what I mean; Alkahest was the idea of a universal solvent in alchemy, orichalcum is known now as a bronze alloy but was considered a special metal from Atlantis, Adamant was a kind of unbreakable stone or mineral, heck even things like fabrics such as the golden fleece from Greek legend. Any culture is good, Nordic, asiatic, african, so long as it's citable I'd be glad to hear about it!

This is a common trope in sci-fi fantasy and at times in just fantasy and sci-fi themselves.

In sci-fantasy stories we have the entire superhero Genre where magic regular gets interacted with using sci-fi elements and has sci-fi explanation. Also the common trope of “Ancient technological kingdom” usually falls into this with like The Legend of Zelda or One piece and Howl’s Moving castle.

With Sci-fi stories this idea is usually brought up to create ambiguity as to whether the sci-fi element is so advanced that it might as well seem fantastical. Like Solaris or Soylent Green and even Dune can fall into this.

And even though it’s rarer, at times Fantasy stories can also try to do this when trying to create hard magic systems that get so intricate they start crossing into science. Here we can get like Full Metal alchemist or Jojo’s Bizarre adventure.

I want to focus on JoJo’s for a bit because it’s one of the few stories that I’ve seen lean so much into classic fantasy while cleverly using this Science trope to disguise it. For example The most classic fantasy trope is Fate. From Iliad to Tolkien, the idea of Predestined paths and destiny and prophecies has been a staple of fantasy and it’s all over JoJo’s.

From prophecies in part 1 of JoJo’s to straight up Fate manipulation in Part 6, JoJo’s tackles the oldest fantasy element and then gives it this hard scientific pivot by explaining Fate in its universe as Gravity itself. Fate is what brings people together and causes predestined events in the future to occur. Well scientifically Gravity is also what brings people together since everything in the universe connects to everything else through gravity and gravity can manipulate time itself so it might as well be what causes predestined events to occur.

JoJo’s bizarre adventure is by far one of the best depictions of the supernatural as science I’ve seen because in as much the supernatural can be explained a science in Jojo’s, it’s also left explicitly supernatural. Like Fate can be explained as Gravity in JoJo’s but this is also left as kind of chicken and egg situation where it’s unclear whether Gravity occurred first and brought up fate-like situations or Fate occurred first and in manifested as Gravity in the physical universe.

Do you guys have some fun political worldbuilding in your world? How are your states, countries, territories and other entities governed? Does any of them have an unusual political system?

Lore

The world of Otherside is a shattered earth that was home to an interstellar empire. Now the last remnants of a star elf civilization cling to life on shards of rock they've tied together with ancient technology. Strange weapons and tools exist and can be used as magick artifacts.

First magick

My main magic system is that there are signals from the other realm, called Otherside. These signals are naturally occurring and carry over information from this reality.

By playing with radio static of two or more signals adds to reality. Pulling pieces of Otherside here into our world. Signal A and B, when crossed, causes an alien lifeform to appear in the world. This alien will be frozen in time, but adjusting the static carefully will allow you to make it act. Not so much like a puppet, but rather it acts of its own volition for a short period of time.

You can fast forward, rewind, or, using specialized vacuum tubes, even record the static to capture a moment that can be used to summon this creature or place.

Of course you also can do other things with this magick. Another example is to add spaces into existence, for lack of a better term. You play signal C and D together and get static CD. This adds a door to a room that doesn't exist and even acts like a pocket dimension things can exist in.

The problem is that the entities don't just disappear after the feed is cut. They fade away, and while that happens, they are uncontrollable.

Second magick

Screaming spirit shards hold the ability to use the ancient technology. You need to assert your will over them. Then as they get used to you the penalty for using them lessens and the powers you can call on grows.

These "spirits" are specialized AI that are made to connect through "psychic circuits" into the mind of the user, allowing for direct interface.

They are currently screaming because the pain they are enduring due to the Song of the Spiral, the same force that tore the universe apart. But they can be calmed if one is patient enough.

Powers

ShockStim

Through the use of electricity to stimulate biological or mechanical systems to cause them to function differently.

Sub powers - ShockStim

Overclock

Make a component work faster or push harder in exchange for more psychic energy. This can be used on machinery or biological systems.

Discharge

Create electrical charges to be used as weapons by overcharging aspects of the system. This discharge causes impairment in physical and mental capabilities.

Bio- Repair

Using controlled shocks to force blood to coagulate and muscles to rebuild. Even force the body to ignore pain and dysfunction.

Penalty

System Failure

The body will begin to weaken supernaturally rapidly as its dependency on the AI tools leads to withdrawals. Much like drug withdrawal.

Okay, my world might be a little unusual and out of place here as my character started as a sticker design for my planner sticker shop, but hear me out! He looks cute, but there is VERY deep lore and world-building going on in this universe. I just started my YouTube channel, so there are only 2 videos and a my first podcast episode on there, but I have A LOT of content on the websites I build for him.

https://preview.redd.it/g59cmh443znd1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=adea9b0286adf35a9836a82ea4037552838124c0

His name is Demoji, he's a cute demon who ascended from his underworld kingdom, the Seven Realms of Septaema, to explore earth. My first website is Septaema.com about his world gives you a tour of the 7 realms, a war history, and a creation story which is my favorite thing! He also attended a school sort of like Hogwarts, called Emberforge University of Otherworldly Arts emberforgeuniversity.com and I've even coded a sorting quiz on the website too!

I'm also currently working on a video game, think Cult of the Lamb meets Hollow Knight, plus centuries of lore and meaning behind everything. I know he looks like he won't have much depth, but I've been working on the lore and his backstory and building his world for over a year

Hello all

Been suffering some writers block recently so I've been looking online for inspiration. Something I noticed on this subreddit and other places is a lot of people's fascination with war. Just in the past few days, a post about an average soldier's field kit came up, and someone else shared a google doc of their setting which was just 9ish pages of descriptions of militaries.

How do you all deal with this issue? I understand the ease of it, the central political event of my setting is a major war, but it's just that, a political event. The story takes place because of the results of that war and the effect on civilians. This isn't some call out post, I've just been thinking what a lot of people want to do is just write military fiction instead of actually worldbuild (although I recognise I am gatekeeping that term somewhat here).

Personally, I started by grounding each society in it's power source. My setting is on the frontier on civilised space so for many people getting the basics up and running is important. Depending on the centralisation of a society, they either use hydrogen fuel cells or oil. I then extrapolated what that might mean for the people in those societies and the logistics in them.

Hi! I recently created and wanted to share one of the gods from my setting, this one is a bit unique, being mostly forgotten by others, but carrying heavy implications about the history and mysteries of the world. Enjoy, feedback is appreciated!

Obligatory lore intro:

The world of Apotheosis was created, in large part, by three Celestials (meaning that quite literally) Solar the Everlight - serving as the Star of the Apotheosis system, Argenta the Wisdom of Silver - serving as one of the Moons of the planet, and, finally, Aurum the Lord of Perfection - being the second Moon of Apotheosis.

The planet is a sphere filled mostly by oceans, sporting three major continental masses, archipelagos, and islands. Those continents are Stella (meaning Star), Seya (meaning Song), and Toch-Calido (meaning Warm Home), each populated by a mix of various races and species, known colloquially as Mortals.

The Holy Weaver

"Weaver is... Everything, I guess. I'm not sure I understand the question. She gave everything she had for us, she made the sacrifice, you know. We don't know what it was, yes... Does it matter? I don't need to know my mother's life or deeds or even name to be grateful. To show love and respect. She is like us, I think. Yes, that's it. She believed too. In the Celestials, in other Gods, in other people... I think that's nice. I think... I think that is what faith should be. Finding something in other people. Something to believe in."

Weaver is... Weaver was. A Lesser Celestial God of sacrifice, progress, fate, and faith itself, her cult is in a constant limbo. She is known only because other Gods speak of her, and because some scholars find clues of her existence in ancient ruins. While most are aware of her faith existing, very few are interested in following a dead, or non-existent God. Her church is actively maintained only in Aval'Sahra, with many of the desert Dynasties essentially treating the cult as a form of state religion, although its involvement in matters of importance is limited at best. It is a curious thing, however, that people often choose to follow her and only her, without sacrificing to other gods. In other regions of the world, she is mentioned rarely, treated more as a curious quirk of the Divine history of this world, an echo of long-forgotten ages. Other Divine figures seem to share the sentiment, treating her much like mortals do, with the exception of a few who show nothing but contempt to her, although unexplained.

Her followers believe in progress for the greater good, progress as an ultimate sacrifice. This makes them less scholars and more philosophers, constantly searching for answers. What should we achieve? How will it help? Who will it help? It is a foggy, abstract faith, filled with a feeling of melancholy and hope.

Who was she? What did she sacrifice? Are we all here because she did it? It is hard to tell. But the Weaver was, and if there is any virtue in the world at all, she was the one who showed it most. She is rarely depicted, but when that happens, Weaver is always a humanoid figure on the edge between solid form and shadowy fog, often with her back turned to the viewer, and surrounded by strange mechanisms emitting light.

Health Bar
Energy Bar
Motion Bar

Is what ive got so far.

A rock does not have life (even though it can contain life via fossils) but in motion, it can cause ranged damage.
Grass ruffles in the wind and brings energy to soil. Technically it has health, energy and motion but the fact it doesn't have sentience means it doesnt have heaith? Idk
Goku channels off Ki, which ive boiled down to energy but i was thinking he needs to lose, at least, some percentage of health before he can transform via super sayian.
Superman has Ultra Flight (which is just super strength and flying), but his weakness is rocks (via synthesized radiation) and Magic (via energy*motion?) but hes still invincibly strong without those.

How do I powerscale fiction and reality?

How do you create believable and interesting fictional cultures and peoples when you're building a world? What are the key things to think about to make them feel real and distinct in regards to their history, customs, beliefs, language as they interact with their environment and other cultures? How do you make sure they have depth and aren't just stereotypes or copies of existing cultures?

Just a small overview on what I do have first.

Ianshira, the Island of Swords, is home to the Strife Elves.

These are the best pound for pound fighters on the planet, training with a weapon from the very moment they can walk. They have wings that look like glasswing butterfly wings(they can use them to enhance their jumps or glide but they cannot fly). They create magic weapons using the Sun and Moon. They use a special type of tree to grow their weapons, even able to make swords that cut as hard as any metal one. They are exceptionally beautiful, even by Elven standards.

They are ruled by a Triumvirate Theocracy, with each leader the leader of the religion of the main 3 Gods they worship; Othera the Oathmaker, Pey'Thon the Watcher, and Kroga the Brawl Queen.

They train not only because they respect martial prowess as an art unto itself that they strive for perfection in, but also due to the abundance of dangers on the island. Demon worshipping Centaurs, marauding tribes of Tabaxi, Hydras, even clans of Hill Giants that can shrink for a limited time

What kind of locations, mythos, villains, etc. could I add from the Wonder Woman mythos?

No I do not mean you take characters from other work and pass them as your own (or am I?) In various shows and the like you have a impostor character , or a copycat, or maybe the villan created some sort of clone, or had one of his/hers henchmen change apperence to look and sound like the protagonist or someone in the protagonist's krew. Or maybe we do a UNO crad and the protagonist does this. How do they achive this?

How do the get away with it? If they get away that it. What are the suttle clues that we have a impostor among us?

Why nobody belives you when you try to tell everyone about it?

How will we make our grand escape onece the mission is over or our cover blown?

What are the consequences of faliure?

Will you die at the hands of your evil boss's dumb guards men thinking that you're the hero or one of the heroes and thus dooming the war and handing the victory to the good guy?

Do many questions could be asked but now I open the floor to you. What say you?

Does anyone here have cannabis in their settings, and if so, do any of you give it fantastical properties? This will absolutely sound like a shitpost, but I have weed be tied to magical power and visions into other worlds throughout my works, and I really enjoy it when anyone does anything like this

I'm currently working on a fantasy world for a video game (I'm not a programmer or anything, but I like world building and I love video games)

My world has seven unnamed realms (they used to be nine but I changed it) each representing one element

(Earth , storm , fire , water , ice , light , spirit)

There was also darkness and Echo but I removed them

I recently had the idea of what if each realm was a planet and they all shared a planetary system connected by magic gateways

While I feel like I prefer them to be all continents on one planet I also like the planets idea , I asked feedback from three people ( two human, one ai) and they said planets

I personally can work either way but I want to know your opinion

I’m trying to come up with some sort of occupation for this Vampire Character for an independent adult cartoon I’m developing. He’s a Vampire who just moved to a new town with his family but was also a Pharaoh in Ancient Egypt and so in a way he’s kind of a hybrid of a Mummy and a Vamp. But here’s my spin he’s not affected by the sun so daylight wouldn’t really be an issue. Also he has a slight gambling problem so the idea of him saving up money for all of his time on earth is kind of out the window in that aspect.

Hi, with some friends I'm in the process of publishing our own tabletop role-playing game, "Gods of Iratia: Days of wrath". A game about martial arts, honor and epic combat, adding elements of science fiction in space, which I hope blend well together.

In the book we are trying very hard to explain the world as clearly as possible, as well as introducing the mechanics calmly and perhaps with some examples. I was thinking that we could even include a glossary with the most common terms, as well as a brief section explaining what a role-playing game is and what its characteristics are.

But today I wanted to ask you what you like and value the most about an RPG handbook, both from the point of view of the DM and the players.

I'll add some context about the story in the comments, to make sure I'm staying within the bounds of the rules.

This is something I made for my fictional universe. I am still working on this concept and thought I'd might share. Hope you like it!

An "Agromarian Witch" is a different type of witch also known as a "Amethyst Witch", from a selected few. There is a coven that consists of seven witches; Diana Delacroix, Magnolia Montclair, Evangeline Corwin, Vivianne De La Fontaine, Amara Rose, Victoria St. Winchester and Sebastian Kingsley. They are ancient and immortal, one of the reasons why they are special, and imbued with the "Amethyst Essence." This mystical energy was believed to be imbued with the power of the amethyst gemstone, enhancing the witches magical abilities and connecting them to the mystical forces of nature. The Amethyst Essence also granted the witches with immortality and the power of amethyst.

(Also there's no concept tag so I just put discussion)

The setting is Eastern European inspired and is one continent in a larger world I might show off later. Tis a modern setting with high fantasy style magic.

https://preview.redd.it/5u9ybzgwxvnd1.png?width=1930&format=png&auto=webp&s=ea1879be75fbfc0b148be41ada623a44508a9e43

I'm reposting this with a better title. This is my first artwork of this type. I'm not sure if I have the flair right so if it's not right, please let me know. Below is the paragraph from the text box:

Short History:

Founded 377 years after the discovery of the New World, the Commonwealth of Oxmoor is a country of countries. Specifically, two. The Republic of Portio and the Republic of Straythia. The Commonwealth is a marriage founded more on diplomatic necessity than actual harmony between the two nations. With both countries having a history of conflict over political, ethnic, and religious differences. However, by 376 A.D both countries had seen reason for union. Portio required allies for a possible war with its continental rivals, while Straythia sought to benefit from the more open markets in the former. In 377 A.D an agreement was made, and both nations had joined to form the Commonwealth of Oxmoor, named after the archipelago both countries inhabited.

Capital: Greywatch

Largest City: Cordray

Population: 10,000,000

Apologies if the format for the text isn't super neat, the software I was using isn't the most precise.

My story takes place in a fantasy world called N-World. One my characters begins to choke and another tells someone to do the heimlich maneuver

Is using the term "heimlich" worldbreaking since my story doesnt take place on earth?