Login

u/MangaNeko13

r/Magicworldbuiling r/cityofmist r/magicbuilding r/fabulaultima r/worldbuilding r/worldbuildersCorner r/fantasywriting r/FantasyWorldbuilding r/mapmaking r/YAwriters r/YABooks r/imaginarymaps
▲ 45 r/worldbuildersCorner+2 crossposts

How many worldbuilding projects you have in the same time?

Dear Worldbuilders of Reddit,

How many world are you building currently/in the same time?

Because, to be honest, I can't focus on only one world. I have few worldbuilding project now:

  1. Urban Fantasy world set in real world (so called primary world) for my current YA project in which I focus very much on shapeshifters (mainly theriantropes). It is set mainly in Central Poland.
  2. High Fantasy world with dimentional magic system and ecology (I made few post about it here already). It is very much inspired by Mediterrean Sea basin.
  3. Dark Fantasy world with belief-based magic system (and probably alchemical vampires, because I want my vamps, even if magic system doesn't fit very well for them). It is inspired mainly by Central and East Europe (Germany, Poland, Hungary, Romania...)

So am I the only one, that couldn't work on just one world at the time or there are another people like me here?

reddit.com
u/MangaNeko13 — 5 days ago
▲ 4 r/YAwriters+1 crossposts

Mobile phones in lifes of modern teenage character - how do you deal with it in your stories?

Dear YA Writers of Reddit,

As we all know, technology is becoming more and more developed and with its development it is bigger and bigger part of people's life. Especially teenagers'! I remember how ten years ago many of my friends had Snapchat, IG etc. We spended lots of time on computers and phones... Now it's only more prevalent.

But I think portrayal of teenagers in fiction doesn't show it. Literary, many YT videos about how teen dramas don't understand teenagers have point about not understanding role of social medias in teenager's life. The same underusage of phones is seen in books with teen characters.

And I think it isn't only generational misunderstanding or way to try enchant reality to make audience less likely to spend hours on the phone.
Internet with its social media could be distraction from the plot. Characters usually don't have time for Snap or Tiktok, when they are in the middle of adventure.
Like "Sorry, Brenda, I don't care about your tiktok dance now. I'm currently chased by pack of werewolves!"
And if there are social media mentioned, they are plot-relevant. Because there is no cyber bulling without cyber space.

And in this way teenagers in fiction look suprisingly like they nearly don't use social media.

But this is only how I view this problem. Do you agree with me that realistic portrayal of screen time of teenagers are hard to do, because social media are distraction from plot? Or maybe you see this in different way?
How you incorporate social media in your books?

Of course, I mean only quite modern stories, not set in 90's or in fantasy worlds, because those types of stories naturally have less internet or no internet at all.

reddit.com
u/MangaNeko13 — 22 days ago
▲ 23 r/fabulaultima

Arcana - how much could they be like other classes' abilities?

Dear Fabula Ultima players and GMs,

As we all know, our favourite game likes for us to homebrew. There is no better example of that than Arcanas, powers of Arcanists. Arcanas in books are just examples, which we can use... or we can treat them as templates (even if there was some rework of the Arcanist).

And my question is: how to make your own Arcana and not make it a copy of the existing ability. Where is the border?

Because, when I read Arcanas, some of them were... very similiar to existing thing. Like Arcanum of Gate (or something like that - I have Polish version) has dismiss ability of dealing darkness damage or teleporting. This is very much in the style of Entropist.

On the other hand, one of the reworked Arcana, Kuzunoha, give the same bonus as Chimerist's Feral Speech: ability to communicate with plants, monsters and beasts. Of course, this merge ability give even more, but this is end of similiarities with Chimerist's abilities.

So... how similiar Arcana could be to other classes' abilities to still be ok?

For example, if I would make an character based on Trailblazer from HSR and use his Preservation form as an Arcanum, could it be something similiar to Guardian's Bodyguard or something like that?

What do you think about this? And how you design Arcana for your games?

reddit.com
u/MangaNeko13 — 1 month ago
▲ 7 r/YAwriters+1 crossposts

Drugs and other stimulants in YA genre - is it too dark?

Dear YA writers of Reddit,

I have a question about how dark YA can be. I mean, I have an idea for YA Urban Fantasy story, where some magical drug is started to be sold in the city (Łódź, to be precise). And few (supporting) characters would take some of it.

To be precise, one of them (let's call him, W.) would take some of it with his friends (as demonstration of peer pressure) and fly into rage (for short time). This would scare him and he will never take it again. But still, this would create mess in among his siblings and show his sense of abandonment, because of his new family situation (his father married new wife just 2-3 month ago and her son, MC, isn't very friendly for him).

Other case would be with different character, who would take it unknowingly and go into a coma. And "detective case of the week" would be how it happened.

Of course, there would be also some E plot about paranomal counterpart of police (who are friends of main characters) trying to find who is making those drugs, because this substance make shapeshifters and even their descendants fly into rage. But I think big part of this investigation would be off-page.

But, I must ask you, is this plot too dark? I mean, I'm afraid if people (above all, publishers) would take my story as YA if there would be drugs in it, even if general message would be anti-stimulants. So, do you think something like that would be too dark?

(My characters are 14-15 years old, so judging by this, typical age of YA MCs.)

Thank you in advance for help. Let's have cultural conversation.

PS.: English isn't my native language (as you can deduce by me setting action in the middle of Poland), so please, be understanding of my errors.

reddit.com
u/MangaNeko13 — 1 month ago
▲ 27 r/fabulaultima

Do you think classical D&D plots suit Fabula Ultima? Can cults work there?

Hey.

When I watched one of the newest MonkeyDM's videos, I started to think, how much different narration in Fabula Ultima is from D&D. Like, would some classical D&D plot elements look good in this system.

Let's take as an example topic of that video - cults. Cults are very typical D&D plotpoint, but... Do they fit Fabula Ultima? Or rather, can they work in similiar way (little creepy, apocalypse is ultimate end-game kind of way) in quirky climate of Fabula Ultima? Because, aside of secretly evil church trope, I don't think I heard about any cults in jRPGs.

I know that technical possibility of cult in the plot is possible in Fabula Ultima. There is always possibility to add something to the story and secret, malicious religious organisation isn't exemption. But, I don't think this would end with "cult of dragons/Vecna/Tharizdun-like" scenario, like those in D&D. Narration in FU is just different, more likely to be changed by players thanks to Fabula Points.

Plus, I don't know how good FU is for investigation sessions. There is no specific mechanic for investigation. This is not Call of Cthulhu. You can roll [Insight+Insight] or use this Loremaster ability to remember thing that happened before, but this is end for specific investigation mechanics in this system.

And talking about CoC... I don't think lovecraftian horror, that usually is associated with this type of cults, would work well here. I know there are people who tried to enact Darkerst Dungeon in this system, but I think it was with great cost to FU climate (not very JRPG) and if it would try to do this with JRPG style, it would flatten Cthulhu to the squishy squid. Like, yeah, powerful being, horror outside of human comprihention, blah, blah, blah... It would be just a big boss.

So, what do you think? Do you agree that the idea of cults for Fabula Ultima needs big change from what we know from D&D to work here? Or maybe you have other opinions? Do you ever runned cult in your FU campaigns?

And what do you think would be good, if there was Dark Fantasy Atlas? Because idea of the cults sounds very much like horror adjescent dark fantasy, so I could also ask about this.

I hope my little "essay" was interesting. Let's have cultural conversation.

u/MangaNeko13 — 1 month ago
▲ 10 r/cityofmist

What city is the City you play in?

Hey!

I know that City from CoM is not some known city. It is imaginary city, that has its own geography, districts etc... But I don't think version of City shown in rulebook aren't something that works for every type of city. I mean, not every city is coastal, has cassino district nor suburbs. I think it is more prevalent in countries other than America (because City looks like it is inspired by American cities).

So, do you modificate your version of City to make it more similar to cities in your country? What do you change? What districts do you remove/ignore and what districts not existing in rulebooks do you add?

Or maybe you make your City one of real, known cities? I think it would be interesting option, but I'm curious if anyone else also had similar idea.

Let's have nice, cultural conversation.

reddit.com
u/MangaNeko13 — 1 month ago
▲ 12 r/FantasyWorldbuilding+1 crossposts

Armor (and clothes) of Maliq, my humble monster hunter

Dear worldbuilders of Reddit,

I decided to illustrate Maliq, monster hunter from my fantasy world (I already posted about magic system and map). As he is hunter, he uses a bow (because, contrary to what Witcher taught us, swords are rather bad weapon to fight monsters). Because he is focused on fighting monsters, his armor is light, made from leather (because this is material he could even collect himself) and in form of pads that are kept in place with belts.

I didn't want him to have armors like Geralt in games - full completes, even if decorations or other heraldry. Maliq is just young men (in his 20s), who is closer in status to some peasant, who went for adventure, than some knight. That's why I wanted him to have simple armor, that could be just placed on his normal clothes - shirt, trousers and high boots.

His armor is made to protect places that usually would be targeted by monsters (which most of them could be described as some animals). That's why he has protected:

  • torso - main "plate" of armor, two leather pieces connected with belts for adjusting to body
  • forearms
  • knees
  • neck - protected by wide collar, that in theory made biting to his carotid artery impossible)

He isn't protected the same way as a knight, that needs to be afraid of arrows or swords.

I also chosen rather natural colors: browns and greens. Because those types of dyes would be easier to get, so even someone with not so much of money could bought materials or even dye fabrics on their own.

So... What do you think about my concept of low-maintanance armor and clothing? Doesn it look interesting? Does it look quite possible?

And one more thing... As you probably see, this character is black. I know how proud African and African American people are of their hair. And how black hair are hard to maintain.
And as this character design is focused on making everything as easy to maintain as possible, I wanted to ask: what types of hairstyles are easy to maintain?
I know traditional African hairstyles and popular in America cornrows, but they all are like something demanding at least one additional person to be made. I drawn Maliq with rather short hair, but if he was on the hunt for long months or even years, I'm not sure if he would be able to maintain his hair as short as on this drawing. (Even, if we take correction on how much black hairs "lie" about their length by curling themselves.)
And I also didn't want him to be bald.

So what do you think?

PS.: I'm sorry for quality of my drawing. I used colored pencils that I have since elementary school and their don't look very good when scanned. Also, they look flat even when not scanned XD

u/MangaNeko13 — 2 months ago
▲ 15 r/cityofmist

Is City of Mist easy system? Is it be good system for one-shots?

Hello!

I bought CoM rulebooks few years ago. But I've never played it. I've just haven't had an ocassion.

I proposed to play it in my local library, where we make one-shot session to give people ocassions to test different systems. (I regulary GM-ed there in Fabula Ultima system.) And they told me that CoM is rather hard. Those all tags etc. make it complicated.

I really wanted to test it and maybe add it to my GM-ing portfolio, but I'm afraid CoM could be too complicated for me and my players. Especially, if it could be their first time with RPGs at all.

So, as subreddit of City of Mist, what do you think? Do you agree that CoM can be little complicated? And what would you advice me to make it less complicated for my hypothetical players?

reddit.com
u/MangaNeko13 — 2 months ago
▲ 34 r/FantasyWorldbuilding+1 crossposts

Non-European elements in fantasy worlds

Dear Worldbuilders of Reddit,

As we all know, most of fantasy is very eurocentric. Most of the works of fantasy are inspired by European folklore, set in fantasy versions of European countries and have people looking quite European. (Especially, if you live in Europe and most if not all of your native language authors are deeply rooted in that European cultures and are, so called, "white".)

But now there is trend to change it. People know more about other cultures and want more representation of non-european cultures and people. (And fact that there is more authors from different cultures also help.)

But I don't think just adding black or "Asian" character into the "European" setting is good practice. It's too simple (I would say: even ignorant) and still makes European culture centre of attention. Even if in this fantasy "European" country is population of "non-European" people, it should be explained, if they are native or immigrants (just like real life Romani, who traveled to Europe from India).

This explanation can be also implied. For example, all human in Dragon Prince traveled to the west from Xadia. So, even if previously human groups lived in some separation, they mixed in the travel. Some humans with darker skin went with those asiatic-looking and they made this kingdom, others went somewhere else etc... And now (s1) Katholis has black king with white royal advisor, mixed prince etc.

So, dear worldbuilders of Reddit, how do you incorporate people and cultural elements inspired by things outside of Europe? Do you even do this?

My answer: My map (you can see it there, but it's still WIP) is heavily inspired by Mediterrean region, so north of the map is more European, while south is fantasy Africa (Maroco, Ethiopia and Egypt, to be precize) and there is "Middle East" on the east. So if I would want black characters, it would be easy for me to say, why they are here. On the south continent - they just are natives. On the north - they just could travel there: maybe as merchant, bard or other type of traveler. Maybe even it could be understanded by just implication: this character has dark skin, so probably is from Indhowma or something like that.

So when black character would appear in the story, fact that people like him exist and sometimes are seen (even in the north continent) would be normalize.

What do you do? Do you make fully non-European world? Or try to mix things more?

Let's have good, cultural discussion.

reddit.com
u/MangaNeko13 — 2 months ago
▲ 10 r/mapmaking+2 crossposts

Map of the Inner Sea

Hi!

I'm starting to design world for novel I want to write (magic, I was talking about not so long ago ( https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/s/QeYqbPXbay ), also come from there). I tried to make a map. I'm not big mapmaker myself, but I tried. I used Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator and... This is what I've done.

This map is inspired by Mediterrean Sea, but with visible differences ("British Isles" and "Caribbean" in the middle). Little simplified, little changes here and there... I'm not sure if it looks good.

But, before I will talk about my mapmaking insecurities, let me loredump a little about countries:

  • Aballorne - elven country inspired by Welsh and Scots. It is protected by the mist (that's why there is Niwl Gwyn Strait, Strait of White Mist)
  • Adamantes - Spain-inspired, powerfull country, previously conquered by Al'shairians, but now is strong and powerfull.
  • Al'shair - country inspired by Maroko and Arabia
  • Ashrad - Babylon-inspired country
  • Deauppiereau - French-inspired country. Name is joke in Polish language, because it's sounds like "dopiero"
  • Eldfjall - Iceland-inspired country. It's name means "volcano"
  • Eraqlyon - city-state inspired by Greece. Name is of course taken from Heraklion city.
  • Harrim - dwarven country. I decided to go full Jewish with dwarves (at least, in their language), so name of the country means "mountains" in Hebrew (with doubled "r")
  • Indhowma - Ethiopia-inspired country
  • Khemeret - Egypt-inspired country, very rich and powerful, known also as Golden Empire
  • Kovir - Iran-inspired country
  • Metsalea - Finnland-inspired country, full of forest (Finnish "metsä")
  • Örzemania - Turkiye-inspired country. Name inspired by Osman, but changed a little.
  • Schwartzen - Germany-inspired country
  • Sicalia - Italy-inspired country, kingdom (at the beggining I wanted it to look more like Italian city-states, but there is princess to be married and son of doge wasn't looking good enough for her...). Name, of course, inspired by Sicilia.
  • Pirate Isles - little anarchic country of pirates, inspired both pirate country of Tortuga in Carribean and Berber pirates
  • Free Merchant Cities - federation of city-states inspired by Italian republics like Venice or Florence. (Because there must be Italian-like city states!)

To be honest, at this point of my planning the story, I need only 4 of them. Party needs to go from Adamantes to the Sicalia, but they will go sideways to Aballorne and Pirate Isles (because it's hard to not go into pirates territory). But everything else is needed to make world more alive and make distance bigger for travel.

So... How good is my map? Aren't countries too big? Aren't borders too simple? Are mountains (etc...) looking believable?

What do you think?

This map probably isn't the last one for this project. There is big possibility that I change some things, but I want to know yours opinions.

Let's have good, interesting discussion.

PS.: English isn't my native language, so, please, ignore some little linguistic errors. -_-

PPS.: The same post was also posted on few others subreddits

u/MangaNeko13 — 25 days ago
▲ 35 r/imaginarymaps+2 crossposts

Map(s) of Inner Sea Region

Hi!

I'm starting to design world for novel I want to write (magic, I was talking about not so long ago ( https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/s/QeYqbPXbay ), also come from there). I tried to make a map. I'm not big mapmaker myself, but I tried. I used Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator and... This is what I've done.

This map is inspired by Mediterrean Sea, but with visible differences ("British Isles" and "Caribbean" in the middle). Little simplified, little changes here and there... I'm not sure if it looks good.

But, before I will talk about my mapmaking insecurities, let me loredump a little about countries:

  • Aballorne - elven country inspired by Welsh and Scots. It is protected by the mist (that's why there is Niwl Gwyn Strait, Strait of White Mist)
  • Adamantes - Spain-inspired, powerfull country, previously conquered by Al'shairians, but now is strong and powerfull.
  • Al'shair - country inspired by Maroko and Arabia
  • Ashrad - Babylon-inspired country
  • Deauppiereau - French-inspired country. Name is joke in Polish language, because it's sounds like "dopiero"
  • Eldfjall - Iceland-inspired country. It's name means "volcano"
  • Eraqlyon - city-state inspired by Greece. Name is of course taken from Heraklion city.
  • Harrim - dwarven country. I decided to go full Jewish with dwarves (at least, in their language), so name of the country means "mountains" in Hebrew (with doubled "r")
  • Indhowma - Ethiopia-inspired country
  • Khemeret - Egypt-inspired country, very rich and powerful, known also as Golden Empire
  • Kovir - Iran-inspired country
  • Metsalea - Finnland-inspired country, full of forest (Finnish "metsä")
  • Örzemania - Turkiye-inspired country. Name inspired by Osman, but changed a little.
  • Schwartzen - Germany-inspired country
  • Sicalia - Italy-inspired country, kingdom (at the beggining I wanted it to look more like Italian city-states, but there is princess to be married and son of doge wasn't looking good enough for her...). Name, of course, inspired by Sicilia.
  • Pirate Isles - little anarchic country of pirates, inspired both pirate country of Tortuga in Carribean and Berber pirates
  • Free Merchant Cities - federation of city-states inspired by Italian republics like Venice or Florence. (Because there must be Italian-like city states!)

To be honest, at this point of my planning the story, I need only 4 of them. Party needs to go from Adamantes to the Sicalia, but they will go sideways to Aballorne and Pirate Isles (because it's hard to not go into pirates territory). But everything else is needed to make world more alive and make distance bigger for travel.

So... How good is my map? Aren't countries too big? Aren't borders too simple? Are mountains (etc...) looking believable?

What do you think?

This map probably isn't the last one for this project. There is big possibility that I change some things, but I want to know yours opinions.

Let's have good, interesting discussion.

PS.: English isn't my native language, so, please, ignore some little linguistic errors. -_-

u/MangaNeko13 — 2 months ago
▲ 100 r/Magicworldbuiling+3 crossposts

Dimentional System of Magic

Hey!

I wanted to share my idea of magic system I want to use in world of story I want to write.

My idea was quite easy. I was inspired by one of Mythical Wukong's films about magical ecosystems. I decided to create magic system in which magic could not only be used by peoples, but also have impact on ecology.

So this is it.

Short history: Thousands of years ago, world was normal... But then energies from other dimentions started to leak into material plane. At first, those energies were transforming the world... untill something (divine) happened and those energies stopped to run rampant. Shortly after that, some people (humans and some others, newly formed races) discovered that they can channel energies from those other dimentions. This was magic!

After many years and generations of studying magic, scholars discovered and catalogued 15 dimentions from which mages can channel energies. Each dimention has different type of energy, having different colors, used for various purposes and connected to various phenomena. (I didn't decided the names, so they are only elements for now). For example, space magic can be used to teleport or create pocket dimention.

Energies can also be mixed. For example, to melt stones into lava and control it, mage needs fire energy for heat and rock energy for controling stones.

Every mage can have better or worse affinity to each dimentional energy, that decide how easy taking energy from each dimention is for them. Sometimes mages use jewellery containing special gems connected to concrete dimention, so they can channel more energy and faster. Concrete circumstances associated with each energy also help with channeling, so ice magic is easier when it's already cold, while death magic works better in proximity to death.

But channeling energy isn't enought. Mages need to make this energy go through them, so they can shape it. If they take more energy than their body can safety take, they starting to overchannel. There are 2 levels of overchannel. Minor overchannels are temporary, little burdensome, but eventually not dangerous effects like small change in temperature or body mass.
Major overchannels are more dangerous, since often they can kill mage. Sometimes major overchannels can be reversible (changes in mass or glowing stop), but often effects are quite instantanous, so mage who overchanneled themself too much can die from charring, drowning or electrocution.

But most interesting fact about this magic is that big amounts of those interdimentional energies don't just vanish into nothingness, but they could make into ecosystem, changing fauna and flora. That's my reason why there are dragons, elves etc. All those not-normal creatures are mutants that evolved from creatures already existing.

Of course, not every mutation will end with forming of different species. Sometimes singular creature can be affected with magical mutation and it is killed before it could pass on genes.
Also, some mages experiment with creating own monsters in this way.

Each dimentional energy have some typical effects on fauna and flora, but creating an armor doesn't mean animals was exposed to traces of rock magic, while air pollenation doesn't mean plant was exposed to air magic. Those are just typical mutations connected to those energies, but they can be caused by other energies or be competely natural.

Often those energies are mixed, because mages used different types of spells or different magics accumulated for years like layers of earth. But sometimes effects of one energies are very distinct in some species or place. For example, ghoul is ape species with distinct influence of death magic, making it looking more like living corpse. On the other hand, multiheaded and regenerating hydra have typical example of mutation caused by animal magic (that is also body magic, used for healing).

So... What do you think? Interesting? Do you see some problems? Do you think there is something I should correct in this?

Let's have good discusion.

PS.: English isn't my native language, so please, forgive my not perfect words.
Plus, this explain some things I used in the table at the top. For example, light blue, blue and navy blue are completely different words in my native language, so they aren't just types of blue there.

u/MangaNeko13 — 2 months ago
▲ 15 r/fabulaultima

Genshin Characters in Fabula Ultima

Hey!

I was wondering how to make an Genshin Impact characters in Fabula Ultima. Just hypothetically. To be honest, it was one of things I was wondering since I read the Core Rulebook. XD

In Fabula Ultima we have 9 damage types, while Genshin has 7 elements + physical... Most of this elements corelate with damge types in FU: Anemo is air, Geo is earth, Electro is lightning, Pyro is fire and Cryo is ice.

But there is problem with Hydro and Dendro.

Even if there is water magic in Elementalis lore, there is no water damage type in the game. In theory, for Hydro it could be used an ice damage... It could mess with distinctions between elements, but it is the best.

But the biggest problem is Dendro, the plant element. Logic suggest using floralist, Class using plants, but... Dendro characters aren't using plants. They use elemental energy of Dendro. In case of other elements, we could associate this elemental energy with damage type (just like in Genshin we get Pyro damage when we stand in burning fire or get Wet in water, which is Hydro related).

Edit: Now I consider light as Dendro substitution.

So what do you think? Is it possible to transfer Genshin-style characters with their elements into Fabula Ultima? What type of damge could Hydro and Denro be?

Hope, my post was interesting. LEt's have a nice discussion.

PS.: English isn't my native language. My rulebooks are in my native language, so some words from rulebooks could be poorly translated.

reddit.com
u/MangaNeko13 — 2 months ago