Exercices d'écriture et amorces de récits pour stimuler l'imagination.
![Image 1 — [Discussion] does it break immersion when the gap between character design is huge?](https://preview.redd.it/9torb66sr72h1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fa6de009af0cbbfd28f2eed9c43c10a1cd3ec665)
![Image 2 — [Discussion] does it break immersion when the gap between character design is huge?](https://preview.redd.it/gu5ycdksr72h1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=96cc23469bfaa0c52e5e7066398c6dd7590207f3)
![Image 3 — [Discussion] does it break immersion when the gap between character design is huge?](https://preview.redd.it/df40oevsr72h1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=08f699a2bc53e216847f02466d0e1103349aa7f1)
Like when you're designing your world and characters or looking at others,
the main cast are overdressed and look like they could be fashion models, while NPCs look extremely plain and simple,
the contrast is the glaring issue, not necessarily the design, ITS the CONTRAST
I keep seeing two arguments for including feudalism in one's worldbuilding project. One is that it provides a fairly decentralized structure for isolated settlements to defend themselves and call in external assistance. The other is that it's supposedly stable.
But, the more I learn about medieval history the less convincing the stability argument becomes. It seems almost like a misapprehension people got from the broad strokes way that history tends to be taught in school. Especially in American schools where the millennium between the "fall" of Rome and Columbus setting sail typically gets glossed over as "uh, kings did stuff."
Feudalism is the failure state of empire, emperors don't want noble lords building up estates and private armies that let them act as de facto governors. They want to shuffle legions and governors around on a regular basis so they have fewer opportunities to establish power bases where they can plot to secede or overthrow the empire. If an emperor thinks they can save money by letting rich landowners raise their own militias and become governors of their home provinces, the Mandate of Heaven tends to change hands.
The reason the Middle Ages get glossed over is not because "nothing happened," it's because "too much happened." Any given year there were a dozen small wars scattered across Western Europe, to say nothing of the dynastic scheming that would precipitate said conflicts. While in less mountainous continents feudalism tended to consolidate back into a new empire within a century or two, it was a recurring theme of Chinese dynasties for one.
for example in my world enchanted equipment (not to be confused with divine equipments) are kind of the main power system and those with more enchanted weaponry of higher ranks are the most revered ones. However to make things a bit more 'fair', I made sure that such objects can not be used continuously, actually requires mental strength and must be empowered by material of spiritual value(for example a sword carved with the spiritual name of sharpness must be imbued with material relating to that concept[sharpness] like a knife sharpened a 1000 times since its just a common ranked enchanted equipment) or else it may break mid battle also it must be noted it also requires a fair share of money (or spirit stones as it is used in my world
This is the world of Quatibru. It is both Sci-fi and Fantasy. Depends a lot on what age you’re looking at.
Ages:
Age of Dragons - Earliest Age
Age of Iron
Age of Heresy
Age of War
Age of Regret - Latest Age
Races:
Humans - racial magic: Nothing!
Demons (an offshoot of Humanity) - racial magic: Emotion for males. Mutation for females
Draconians (lizard folk) - racial magic: Heat
Varex (bat/hyena people) - racial magic: Sound
Nightengales (bird folk) - racial magic: Runes
Myrthari (Insect People) - racial magic: Fate
(I’m likely to sleep soon, so don’t be surprised if I answer in a few hours.)
Edit: Okay. This blew up. Thank you for all the answers. It'll take me a while to go through and respond to them. I really appreciate this, Thank you again.
TLDR: See world map. Where to place cities? Medieval ages.
I am at the stage of worldbuiling where I am about to place encampments, settlements, villages and cities on the map of my world.
I have basic ideas on where these should be placed based on various factors.
My intention in asking this to all of you is to see if there are any factors that I may have missed out or not personally thought of.
For reference, below is a gist of my world:
- Takes place on Earth 250 million years in the future.
- The continents have merged to form the super-continent of Pangea Proxima/Ultima
- Magic exists
- A lot of fantasy races, creatures and deities similar to Dungeons and Dragons lore.
- Countles cataclysmic events that "rebooted" the world back to the equivalent of the stone ages.
- The world is currently in the stage where it would be equivalent to our medieval ages.
- Cross ocean travel has not been discovered yet.
- Most of the inhabitants believe the world is flat.
- There exists a network of interconnecting massive caverns that cris-cross under the whole super continent. Nobody knows exactly how deep they go or what dwells there. (Similar to the Underdark from D&D.)
Attached is an image of how the world looks like. Not my image. I did a google search for Pangea Proxima/Ultima and that is what I found.
My world map will be based on this map. The main difference is that the areas nearer to the poles will be colder and be in perpetual winter similar to our North and South Poles. Also the areas nearer to the equator will be warmer and not go through the 4 seasons. Basically summer all year round similar to our tropical areas near the equator.
Thank you in advance.
Testing my one of my character for future project inspired by Lovecraftian lore because I’m bored. this guy will be one of the powerful celestial being.
Worldbuilding has been on the backburner of my life for a long time and I'm just getting back into it. I've had various "seeds" for various fictional novels and their worlds around for a long time that had the basic elements all set up.
But I'm genuinely tempted to just throw them all together and see what still sticks , have any of you done this?
Hello everyone! I’d like to show you another story idea I have (because apparently I have way too much imagination 😭). Since I’m a big fan of samurai stories… I made one! But this time, instead of robots and futuristic themes, the story takes place in ancient times (around the 1400s/1500s) with magic based on gunpowder and metal.
These people with magical abilities were first discovered in Japan on one of the islands called Kagero. It is said that the heart has an extra extension that allows certain people to manifest magic. All magic users are known as the ‘Kuroen’ (those of smoke) and the ‘Hagane-no-Mon’ (those who manipulate metal).
These warriors are samurai who serve the clans of Japan and much of the Shogun’s rule. Soon after, we meet Kohana, our protagonist, who escaped from the Shogun after being enslaved by him. From the outside, people believed the Shogun’s ‘daughters’ were fortunate nobles, but in reality they were treated as tools and prisoners.
Kohana managed to escape, but she couldn’t save her brother.
At the beginning of the story, she is in Tsuyohana, preparing… to take revenge.
But she won’t be alone, because throughout her journey she will make allies in order to defeat the Shogun.
I will love to see your opinions about my story!!!❤️🩷💘💘💖💖🩷
My oc, nova is half fae half human. She's roughly 12-13 years old. She lives in a small village and they rely on hunting and foraging. They have minimal access to metal so most things are made of leather, flint, obsidian, wood, and plant fibres. She doesn't carry all of this all the time, but this is most of what she owns.
I started my biopunk worldbuilding project because I always wanted to see the this setting: Humanity has moved entirely to organic, wetware-based technology. No steel, no fossil fuels - just engineered biology.
In-universe, that wasn't a utopian choice. It happened because resource scarcity and environmental collapse made biotech the viable path, then a war involving anti-metallic weapons (rust spores) accelerated the collapse of metallurgy. Metal is now a niche material, like clay is to us.
So what do machines look like in this world? A few key concepts I've worked out:
Structural materials - Fasteners like screws are less common, you’ll rather custom-grow parts from steelbone, gigacorals for buildings, and sporopollenin (from pollen, very heat-resistant). These replace steel and concrete.
Mechanisms - movement is driven by fertilizer-powered muscles, cartilage/bone winders for circular movement, and pneumatics / hydraulics. Peak power output is a real engineering challenge here.
Control systems - organic electronics are already a thing. For software, you have fungi biocomputers. Controlled growth and more computing happens via XNA (DNA expanded to contain all possible amino acids as nucleic acids), with biological transistor-equivalents called transcriptors capable of boolean logic.
Maintenance - biomachines can heal microfractures and passively adapt, but long-term storage is a hard problem. My current idea is predetermined bloom/hibernation cycles where most of a machine goes dormant and organoids that can't hibernate are allowed to wilt and regrow.
One of the trickier design questions is where does one draw the line between a biomachine and a living creature? A few edge cases in the setting (engineered ants, fungi computers that develop emergent sentience) make this murky, but that’s also the fun of biopunk.
This is more of a summary of the lore on biomachines. You can read the full thing in the wiki. I'd love feedback - what you miss, and especially on things that feel underdeveloped, or sci-fi precedents I should be aware of.
Hi everyone!
So to summarize the idea; Charon and Bodhi run a coffeeshop in a Cyberpunk environment. They still make coffee with real beans and bake stuff with real ingredients, hence became a
popular place to relax at.
Quick main character summary;
The narrative is to have a mostly cozy setting with Charon and Bodhi running the café and all kinds of characters visiting their café. However, Charon will sometimes go to work to free those that need true liberation - a permanent death. No backups to servers, no hosting on silicon hardware. The story around these two will explore philosophical topics.
Let me know if you have any feedback you'd like to share!
Discovered in the mountainous rainforests of Papua New Guinea in 1932 by Ernst Vernon Brackwater, the Snoring Sleepy Toad (Bufo somnolentus stertens) is a curious and hearty fellow.
Its discovery had done much to convince the renowned explorer and author that there are great and wonderous creatures to be found in all corners of the world. One just has to know where to look.
On E.V. Brackwater: Brackwater was an intrepid explorer during the 1930s interested in the wonderous and strange organisms residing in the hidden pockets of our world. He started an anthology called The Field Guide to Unusual & Splendid Fauna, filling its pages with sketches and information from his global travels.
As I think of that for my own world and because I need to speedeun the worldbuilding a lot. Family is a very important aspect of it and I have this question, why is your world polygamous or monogamous?
I have been thinking and I don't know what to choose for mine as the average family archetype. I haven't thought of it much in the past but now that I know people in my world tend to have many children I wonder if they see having extra partners as safe way to ensure every child is taken care of or they'd rather just have a partner and let other family live with them, like aunts or uncles, etc.