In my medieval science fantasy universe, designations such as Empire, Kingdom, Duchy, Principality or Republic are not just territorial descriptions but also based on institutional structures, economic resources and magical power.

Empire: The title of Empire is bestowed to those states that have industrialized rapidly and achieved extreme levels of magical power to cosmic proportions. Often associated with elven and dwarven civilizations from Ydram and Divarlim respectively

Kingdom: Kings are those rulers that control states that have developed artisan manufacturing thus capable of developing cannons and arquebuses of 1600s.

Duchy: Agricultural producer of luxury foods such as wines, spices, honey and others. Despite their seemingly lower status, they remain important and have large degree of soft power as luxury foods are used as currency to pay Salborian giants for construction services and friendships.

Principality: Agricultural society that produces basic food stuffs and staple foods such as grain or pastoral farms. Similar to Duchies, principalities specialize in fertility magic.

Republic: Technocratic societies that are established and governed by academies of magic and sciences that offer diverse range of magical services. There is only one Republic due to it's importance mainly the Rimorid Republic which surveys the world of tree of Di-yarval for migrations from other worlds and otherworldly threats of invasion.

I am still thinking how to make my classification of states unique and interesting to stand out. Any Tips?

The world of Varkaven is that of forgotten lands. Current civilization thrives in the rubbles of their past, who once were powerful enough to reach the heavens. These powers were driven by vanity, and their greed sunk them into the dark recesses of the world. Today factions fight for glory and wealth, and history will repeat itself, even the history we lost eons ago.

Do you prefer working with familiar fantasy species like elves and orcs? Do you use some but not others like using elves but no trolls? Do you change them in a way to make them more original to your world like a new kind of dwarf or dragon? Did you add sapient dragons for any reason? Was it because you thought they were cool, or was there a more specific reason to add them in or leave them out?

Are humans present at all in your world? Are they different in any way? Are there multiple sapient species of humans in your current time period?

Do you use anthro animals? Are they more humanoid (like Beastars) or are their bodies and traits closer in proportion and ability to regular animals (like Zootopia where they can run on all four)? Are there birds with flight, or flightless birds? Are there sapient reptiles like lizards? Are there sapient dragons and dinosaurs? Do they have 4 limbs or 6? Can the avians grab things with their wings? If so, how do they physically do that? Are there proper fingers or do you use "feather fingers"? Has the infamous birds or reptiles with breasts question ever come up? Do you use many animals for this for the fun of it or are there limitations of which species can or cannot be sapient? Are aquatic or insectoid species off the table or are they favourites for you? How do you choose the traits and designs for those? Did you make entirely new or alien wild animals and then made sapient versions of them?

Do you use entirely alien characters? Are they humanoid? How many limbs? Do they share the space with other sapient species?

Do you use more scientifically plausible or speculative designs or do you choose traits because they look cool?

For me, I decided to go the route of anthro animals emerging through natural evolution. Humans exist but in the grand scheme, they would be seen the same as the other species. I limited the selection to carnivores and omnivores. Leaving out obligate herbivores not only weeds out animals less likely to get the brain power needed(less likely, but I don't know if sapience would be impossible for herbivores so I'm not taking a solid stance on that), I also don't need to worry (as much) about herbivorous characters living next to their predators. I also keep wild variants around just to be sure (so there are sapient and nonsapient species of some animal families). Leaving out herbivores also takes out the need to worry about ungulates like deer and horses. I have no clue how a hoof with is basically a single large nail could ever separate into separate fingers. However, depictions of anthro horses in TV shows and art tend to depict fingers with larger nails. I also want the nonhuman species of my world to be able to move in a way similar to the nonsapient versions? This include pouncing, climbing trees with ease, running on all four and flying for avians. I don't know any way to give an ungulate proper hands and fingers while also retaining the ability to run on all four so those are completely off the table. I chose to preserve other traits like strong sense of smell and seeing different colour ranges. I wonder how the colour ranges would affect clothing, camo, armour, banner design and colour associations in a society. For example, the Chinese in real life see red as good luck, but what if the members of a culture cannot see red or similar colours? Would they be absent from all designs or would they be used by accident out of ignorance? How would humans from China explain what red means them when talking to a species that doesn't know what red looks like? Aside from mammals like canines, ursids, mustelids, felines and such, I've also decided to add avians. I'm not sure what species to base them on but I imagine them similar to the Rito, which would be close to owls and hawks most likely. Although I want them to manipulate objects, I don't want to use the feathers themselves as fingers, which is a thing people commonly do in depictions, including with the designs of the rito. I want to use proper fingers while retaining the ability to fly.

On the more speculative side, kemonomimi have actually given me quite some trouble judging by my previous posts. The most reliable way to make them appear would be literal magic since the idea of retroviuses would be unreliable without a lot of tweaking. Then there's how I would categorize them if they are based on the same species (humans) with features of different unrelated species (wolves, cats, bears, ie not the same family as humans). I've also recently considered reptiles. To reduce the total, I think I'm going to mix the traits of reptiles, dinosaurs and dragons to enable lots of variability with character designs and replacing hair with feathers. So any fluffy parts would be feathers. Hairstyles would be imitated with stylized feathers. To shoot down the infamous question before it's asked: no breasts, but I'm open to internal muscle and fat padding. This may or may not have cultural effects down the line for them. Beside humanoid designs, I'm thinking of sapiens quadrupedal species for reptiles/dragons. They would be a more recent evolutionary step than the wild species, but the humanoid ones would separate from them. I've also considered an aquatic species as well. I'm not great with more original designs so I'd be altering a species I'm familiar with if I go through with this. I'm partial to shark inspired or based characters I've seen before such as the more common forms of the zora alongside adding the ability to move and survive on land. I don't have any plans for alien species at the moment because I don't plan on taking any of my characters into outer space for a long time, not to mention the rings would have them pinned down for longer. Still, I plan on having another habitable planet in the system to keep my options open. I've recently taken a liking to the design of Alex Ries' birrin due to being sapient nonhumanoid aliens, but also not so ugly or unrecognisable that relating to them is impossible. They're kind of cute in a way.

I see a lot of posts listing what someone decides to put in a world, but I haven't seen any posts about how they're chosen/designed. I'm curious about this part in your worlds. What were your thought processes and considerations?

Lapis_Wolf

It's kinda a common trope for horror and thriller to have these stuff which makes me feel anxious to use this trow. But what do you think when you write something in this category? I just want to feel confident if you have this idea in your story and its own unique twist.

Hello everyone! I need some help with a worldbuilding question.
So, let me get straight to the point, my world is deeply connected with magic, it's not mysterious, it's not something unknown, everyone can learn if they want and they interact with it daily! But I have a question.
My partner (Who I also share the story with) asked me if magic is also acessible even for lower social classes, and I did not consider that before! If magic is something common, would it be able to be accessible for everyone? If not, why?

I considered something in the terms of functional illiterate, let's say... Someone who says a spell to produce a fireball, they KNOW it's a spell to make a fireball, but they do not know what the spell means, y'know?

Thank you for any help in advance!

Shells (Kwind)

Kwindi coins are called shells. The name is believed to date back to the earliest days of civilization on the archipelago, when seashells, or perhaps the carapaces of crabs or insects, may have been used in place of precious metals. While the smaller coins depict an increasing number of seashells, the ten-shell piece shows a crab, the twenty-shell piece a lobster, and the hundred-shell piece depicts the spiral of an ammonite fossil.

Thimbles (Orisla)

Orislan coins are called thimbles. The origin of the term has eluded reconstruction by historians, but some have ventured that perhaps it refers to an ancient unit of weight (a “thimbleful”). Thimbles are typically metal coins, adorned with the face of various Kings, but Orisla has recently been experimenting with the use of paper notes. 

Hands (Ceram)

Ceramise coins are called hands. Legend holds that in the age of the Second Plan, the First Emperor would take one coin in each of his hands and weigh them to assure each was the same weight. In recent years, the paranoid Emperor Fo Coi has attempted to re-mint as many coins as possible with his own face on them, in the hopes that doing so might endear him to the disgruntled Ceramise public. 

For my personal world (A science-fantasy setting), I've got a lot of the "big" elements laid out (races, nations, magic, technology, geography, cosmology, etc.). But I'm having some trouble making things on the "human level." Like making individual creatures, people, works of in-universe media, hobbies, food, etc. Even the most basic ideas leave me drawing blanks. For some reason, I just get.... writer's block, so to speak. It's for this reason that, while I've made a lot of the world, I feel it's nowhere close to finished. Any tips?

https://d.benlotus.com/snapsynopsis/2024-11-30_9NNqQq/THE_MASTERS_OF_STILTS_(6).pdf

realNOTE: The whole "Novel" behind the lore is not real, i often like making little fictional novels to further add on some scaffolding to the general world I'm creating. Also, the art used in the file was made by the amazing artist Keith Thompson. I myself cannot draw very well but i wanted to sorta let myself use visuals for my enjoyment and potential your own! ALSO ALSO, This is my first real attempt at worldbuilding, and also my grammar is not exactly top-notch and Grammarly did leave me hanging in some areas. Other than that, I hope you like it!

This is what I have so far for my boiling sea it just my rough thoughts put to paper. Sorry if its not coherent or an easy read.

The Boiling sea, the water in this sea is always boiling, it would have to rain a lot for the water level to remain at about the same level since boiling water evaporates. Most of the sea life in this sea have clear skin and organs that look akin to glass. The islands that would have been made of sand would be made of glass here as the area is so hot the sand turned into glass. Dragons migrate to this part of the world when having children as most other living beings can’t even get here. Dragons have their young here because humans can't live there and the few humans that try can't stay for long so their egg’s and children are less likely to be stolen. Dragons once they lay their eggs on an island in the boiling sea will come and go as its so hot in the area they don’t need to use their body’s to warm it. Dragons being so big and fast would be able to easily leave the sea to reach their den. they might sleep there or bring some of their treasure to the egg so once it hatches it can start its own hoard. The dragons would also hunt for food near their den like normal. Once the dragon hatches they would leave the young dragon who can’t fly yet on an island and hunt and bring back food for it. Humans would obviously die here but mages can use magic to protect themselves but unless they have a lot of mana they can’t stay there for long and even with a lot of mana they can’t stay for more than a day since when they sleep their magic would be canceled.

I’m making a character who gets these powers but they must have a downside

For a long time, my world decidedly had 3 suns and 1 moon. The orbit is also all KINDS of messed up, with the planet changing which sun it orbits around every 2 weeks, along with changing what shape it orbits in (Cycling through a triangle, a rhombus, and a flat dodecahedron), causing the seasons to never really be consistent.

Not making this any better is the fact that the planet's axis is turned at 37.4 degrees, making the climates of each continent impossibly different from one another.

All I want to know is this: What would REALLY happen on a planet with 3 suns? Because I feel as if that's the most important part here.
Would there be any cultural/religious implications? Would anyone would even be alive for long enough to DEVELOP a culture?
Ask me if there's anything about my world I need to clarify for!

Proziland, 2003 A.D. (After Dirt)

I am building a small coastal town on a gnomish continent in my dnd world. The nation is supposed to be japan inspired but I really don't know too much about Japan. I need some help fleshing out the town to make it seem Japan inspired

Symbols

Name of Semi-Sentient animals:
"White Durn"

Appearance:
Medium height (4ft - 5 ft)
furry White coat across whole body
tail and ears.

Symbols meanings:
Language

(One on the far right)
Means warmth and light.

(One in the middle)
Means Rebellion and freedom

(The ones on the left)
They mean:

Top one:
Fire wood or wood

Middle one:
Number 17

Last one:
New, hope, Home

The tablet on the left is a story i guess lol.

Tell me any hints you may have and tell me if anything is wrong with my statements before. many thanks!

Remember have a great day!!

My idea is to design a small Island south of Indonesia, preferably set around the 1850s. My only issue is I’m struggling to decide how to keep it relatively historically accurate. The idea is that some soldiers of the English East Indian company have landed here and they must fight Natives and The Dutch. Does anyone have any ideas on how to expand on this?

My main question is: are there any scientifically plausible propulsion systems which would work in a vacuum or very thin atmosphere that only require a power source and no additional fuels or fluid/gas mediums?

For context I'm in the very early stages of writing a somewhat hard sci-fi setting and I'm curious about what propulsion systems I could use for "aircraft" intended for use on planets with no or little atmosphere.

It's seems common for sci-fi spacecraft to use a nuclear or some other type of "reactor" to power their ship - which includes the ship's engines. However, as far as I can tell from a cursory browsing of Wikipedia, any rocket engine would additionally require some kind of fuel to eject mass rearward to propel the ship forward.

For example:

• A nuclear thermal rocket is nuclear powered, but still uses a working fluid
• An ion thruster requires a gas to ionize

I realize I may just be asking for something that defies the laws of physics, but I figured it was worth asking folks who may know more than me about the subject.

In your world, just how important and explored is the source of your magic? Does it really matter to its occupants? If you have multiple systems (actual systems, not different flavors of magic that runs on same 'fuel'), are some more accepted than others?

I was playing with the idea of making multiple magic systems in my world, and I started to think of it (in terms of how people in-universe would think it) as such:

Natural magic is natural because we know where it comes from and that it's a normal part of existance. In my world, the 'Flame' of Chaos, equal parts Creation and Destruction, made all that exists, be it perfect at first or made it by consequence of destruction (Just think of the big bang, an explosion that made everything). People have souls, and in those souls there is a bit of Chaos' flame inside, with it and your willpower to control it, magic is possible. As it is something all living creatures possess, it's natural.

Unnatural magic is magic that comes from strange/unknown sources. I know what power I'm using to do magic, so what the hell are you using if it's not that? What do you mean you don't know?!

Honestly, it's just a cool idea to consider in my opinion. I definitely want to explore it in my world.

Are there any websites that let you create a fake website for the sake of making a screenshot within your world? For example if I wanted to make a website or something around those lines about dwarf shopping what site should I use. For worldbuilding purposes.

Like what is your worlds Walmart or Apple or Tim Hortons

Does anyone else build a world just for the sake of worldbuilding? I know I do and I feel a bit bad because I want to work on writing stories for other projects but I can't find myself making a central main story for my world. It was alsoways meant to be a natural history and civilisation histoy of a planet so I never intende to make one main story.

Does anyone else have this problem? if you have any reccommendations please share. If you have this issue tell me about your world.

Everoth

The world I'm crafting consists of terrifying emperor who possesses mech pilots and fuses them with their mechs to craft living monstrosities under his control. These monsters enforce the emperor's law in cities under his dominion.

Charpool

The main setting is Charpool, Monnland. A large metropolitan area renowned for its innovation, military prowess, and terrible poverty. The people here are slaves of the almighty dollar. Those who make it by only do so through cutthroat means. But if you're in the fields, the only way out is death or the military. So essentially also death.

Those lucky few scouted by the military to operate war machines like the renowned mech suits are set for life but rarely live very long. In Charpool, you make it up the ladder, or you die at the bottom.

Mana spheres

There are those few lifted with large amounts of mana and the ability to produce gates at will.

However, not everyone is capable of using the high amounts of mana required to cast a spell, so they use mana spheres and artificial mana. Basically, someone creates an imprint of their mana into a data sphere. This creates a replica personality based on a select few neural pathways that one can link to.

The sphere is then connected to a reservoir of artificial mana, and the user can connect to and instruct the sphere using small amounts of mana, and this allows them to use spells.

Gate devices

Gate devices are manufactured to form a gate out of metal or plastic. A device may have a handful of options, but those are more expensive and don't last as long.

Basically, magic is controlled by the flow of mana through gates. Like bubble wands controlling the size of bubbles as wind passes through, gates change the shape of mana as it passes through.

These gates can form artificially, biologically, or even geological as mana wears down a pathway through rock or soil. These gates can be simple and allow for minor changes to complex allowing for major changes.

Hard-link

If one directly touches the mana sphere, there is a chance of hard-linking. A process where your mind temporarily links to the replica personality. This can cause immediate pain and mental fogginess, among other problems, for hours to days due to the personality feeding on your subconscious. This is rarely dangerous but can damage the replica personality, so it is important not to let it happen.

In more advanced data spheres, like the Doppelganger's Core, I is possible that hard-linking can lead to mental imprisonment into the sphere. This is rare but can not be undone if it occurs, so always practice caution when using high-level data spheres.

Mech suits

Mech pilots have their mana scanned during training to create a husk personality that is placed into a high-powered Doppelganger's Core. The husk is a full replica of your personality without any drive or passions.

This Doppelganger's Core is tied to an individual and is how mechs are operated.

When a pilot takes on the use of a mech they will operate the Doppelganger's Core as one might a wheel, but they are trained to use mana to create a shield between their hands and the device.

Fusing ritual

When a pilot is considered talented enough, a Doppelganger's Core will be made with the emperor's mana. Not some duplicate, but the mana of the emperor himself.

Then, the pilot will directly touch the device and fuse with it permanently. Their mind and the emperor's becoming one. This allows the pilot to become part of the Royal Mech Divisions. Those mech pilots that serve to enforce loyalty from the citizenry instead of fight in the military.

This is considered a great honor, but what the pilots think isn't so clear, as they never speak again.

Mana dependency

If you use too much artificial mana, you will stop producing your own. This leads to a quick drop in body structure. Over a few months, your body will weaken dramatically, and you can even die from this. The only solution known of is to consume high levels of artificial mana.

This condition can be passed down to one's children as well.

Do they raid for their supplies? Do they make money from smuggling gigs? Do they have their own black market? Did its leaders invest in a product that just so happened to become popular among normal people and the normal market is inadvertently funding the world's criminals?

How do your villains and bad guy groups keep themselves funded enough to carry out their deeds?

So I'm kicking around an idea for a big evil slave empire right now I haven't gotten anything solid right now so I just wanna know your thoughts and if this idea is slightly realistic in anyway?

And also if you've got any criticism that would be great too.

Basically this empire is made out of 4 classes:

Slaves: these make up 79 percent of the population. Slaves make up the work force with factory districts the size of city's holding sometimes up to millions of slaves they are woken up in the morning to blaring sirens telling them to get up, they get a thirty minute meal in the morning and at night consisting of flavorless slop that contains the bare minimum amount of nutrients to keep them alive. Just before they hit the factory floor they are all given doses of Methamphetamines to keep them productive. From their they work 16 hour work days all day everyday until they drop dead from exhaustion. Kept under careful observation by soldiers who have machine guns trained on them at all times alongside their floor managers who makes sure they hit their quotas. Any slaves that miss their quotas are shot, any slave that is caught attempting to escape is flogged to death, if a slave does manage to escape 10 random slaves are flogged to death and all the other slaves of the factory are forced to watch. Slaves are all given a single uniform to identify themselves to the guards a single blue jump suit with a number on it and if you lose that then they are flogged as a punishment. Slave houses consist of giant cramped buildings with no rooms only giant empty floors with only thin mattress and blanket to sleep on. It's possible for prisoners to earn better conditions by snitching on others prisoners crimes and propaganda blasted over loudspeakers in the factories are encouraged to spy and snitch on their fellow slaves in order to create a culture of mistrust amongst the slave population. Female slaves are not given any special privileges and are expected to meet the same quotas as their male counterparts it's also not unusual for female slaves to get pregnant either by falling in love by a male slave or being assaulted regardless they are still expected to preform the same labor while pregnant and are only taken to the infirmary once they give birth and the child is also born into bondage.

Soldiers: These make up 10 percent of the population. This class is made entirely of men who have been trained from birth to be mindlessly brutal soldiers who rape murder and torture their way across the lands. Taken from their mothers at birth and inspected by a group of medics and if the medics find any "defects" the child is euthanised. The ones who survive are raised in communal home and "looked after" by female care takers Babies are left in dark rooms with hard cots and their cry's are ignored. From ages 5-15 these boys spend dusk to dawn in combat training and learning about combat, hunting, survival ect. Soldiers are also taught to abstain from all worldly pleasures such as drugs, alcohol and sex. All children are constantly encouraged to bully and shame one another for their smallest flaws and once a week all the children are gathered in a circle and the are told to yell at one of the children for their flaws. Children are not given any sort of foot ware until they are 15 to build up calluses on their feet so they might March for miles under any conditions. If any of the children are caught breaking rules they are beaten in front of the other children. Not because they we're breaking rules but because they got caught breaking rules. No punishment is ever given for actually breaking the rules but for getting caught. After reaching 15 years old they become full soldiers and are sent off either waging one of the empire ever on going wars of expansion or sent to guard slave factories. Sadistic elements in soldier's are not just encouraged but mandated as when soldiers capture a city/town they are given kill quotas and told to liquidate at a minimum 50 percent of the population often soldiers on their marches may kill and torture animals for fun and guards of slave factories may force prisoners to fight each other to the death for their entertainment. These men are never allowed to leave the army and are expected to serve in it until they keel over and die. However soldiers are also entitled to time off.

Civilians: This class also makes up 10 percent of the empire. This class consists of entirely women and they make up the civilian population of the empire as they are given rights that men do not have for example they are given the right to own private businesses. Young girls are allowed to stay with their mothers and have relatively normal childhoods and they learn about the sciences, mathematics, poetry, history etc. they are also given a healthy amount of exercise where they are learn gymnastics, dance and wrestling to ensure they grow up to be healthy mothers.

Oligarchs: these make up only 1 percent of the population and run the state. They are hereditary rulers who are all descended from the original founders of the empire they are in charge of passing and amending laws, holding other oligarchs accountable when they break said laws, budgeting and finances, keeping the mostly state run economy chugging along and overseeing the ever ongoing wars of expansion the empire fights.

Thoughts?

I'm trying to add text for the various locations on the map. This is the Polnyett, an Elven kingdom in my DND campaign. My DM let me design the kingdom and it's been a blast! (We've collaborated a lot about the map, biomes, species/races living in different spots, etc.) I want to use the ITC Zapf Chancery font, as it's one of the fonts used in official DND resources, though I'm open to including other DND fonts if Zapf is too difficult to read for the smaller text. Every time I add text to the map, it's difficult to read and it doesn't "pop" from the map. I'm planning on separating the map into nine smaller maps with more detail (which sounds like a nightmare, ngl), and technically I could put all the location names there, but I would really like to find a classy way to include some of the broader text on the main map. Any suggestions? Also, for context, I'm using Photoshop, but I'm getting some resources from Canva and have tried exporting text from Canva to my Photoshop file and that has been somewhat helpful. That's what I did for the title.

https://preview.redd.it/68wraiynu34e1.png?width=2000&format=png&auto=webp&s=7d044239df68e9457d6de32d81f24df3b1fc2e44

My most developed world was a sci-fi setting I made in my teens, where animals mutated into humanoid bodies and intelligence, then rose up and overthrew humanity before colonizing the stars. Following an economic crash, the animal races split up into four main factions (Each being a different corner of the political spectrum) and various sub-factions to create a more effective system that didn't make the same ones the last one made. So I'd essentially made edgy Star Fox.

I threw this world out because I feel the anthro animals angle held it back, though I'd hate to see all that work go to waste.

Do you have a subreddit for your world?

What I mean is after making the world or even making a story off of it. Do you regret or even despise it for a reason