r/goodworldbuilding

So context first: the world of Hollow Lake is a dark fantasy world that takes place large pit that’s surrounded by cliffs on all sides, it’s substantially larger in surface area than the earth(not sure by how much but yea), it’s part of a flat plain. While there are plants and animals who serve similar functions as ones in the real world there are none directly from the real world. The environment is rather hostile and deadly, for example there are gigantic storms that constantly rage across the world, the hottest desert is too hot for people to survive, some places the winter is said to flash freeze a fire. The ocean is unforgiving. And in the middle of the world there is something called the Iris, which is a large impact point in the middle surrounded by a ring of mountains that crosses land and sea. There are straits but storms don’t pass through. The waters within the Iris are calm to an eerie extent. But that’s not to say the this is a less hostile area. Within the Iris the sun is at its hottest(where the previously mentioned desert is btw.) but oh well that’s enough of that, species that inhabit the world are Humans, then there is a subterranean race of anthropomorphic eusocial bugs called Myr, and then there are the Nobilis, and the Morior, which are from other dimensions but bound to this one, and stand ins for typical good and evil. At least in perception. So last two are Automatons and what I call “tourists” which yea they’re spirits or entities that don’t belong in this realm. Also the technology level can be compared to the sixteen hundreds

Anyway the magic system:

So there are two types of magic and three general types of magic users. Those being, sorcery and Alchemy. And the magic users are Sorcerers, Alchemists, and Casters. With those last two overlapping a fair bit usually.

The natural world is full of magic, but it’s not something that is acknowledged if that makes sense? It’s just seen as part of nature. Sorcery is when it is tied to a person. Only humans can be sorcerers, the reason for this is that humans are the only ones who can breed with “tourist” entities, and that entity’s magic passes on to the offspring, but the inherent magic such an entity passes down, which is usually far less than itself has, is still far greater than a human can actually use so it is then again passed down a few generations at least.

Anyway! Alchemy would be using natural resorces to “make” magic, that is to say extract its properties and use it to make something else. This includes spells which must be carried for a wizard to use them. Which is what a caster is, someone who uses items or tools made my an Alchemist, and that often means they overlap, since most Alchemists would use their magic items. but casters are more numerous because using items is easier than making them.

Sorcery kinda just ends here because all I really can say beyond this is that it’s instinctual but can be practiced, and it’s cost is the same as any other muscle in the body, so sorcerers have fast metabolisms usually.

Now back to alchemy, the cost of making is just knowing what to use and how to use it, really that simple, though it is a difficult field to learn, so it’s usually elitist too since the average peasant can’t afford to learn it I’m sure you get the gist. Casters too but less so since it’s easier to learn but also you need to be able to afford the items. Casting has a heavier price too on the user since it effects the body, mainly spells have a heavy drain on their mental health.

There are restrictions on what it can do, but I’m still struggling to decide what it can do, if you feel that makes this pointless, yea probably I just wanted to share what I have and maybe get some advice on how to make it good.

The ECL is a passion project I’ve been building for a while. Basically, it's a fictional futuristic combat sport that runs like a sports league.

The ECL run in seasons with 12 "event weekends". There are 10 teams of 2 fighters that compete across huge arenas (which I've based in real locations worldwide) in matches called Gauntlets.

I’ve built teams, fighters, championships, rivalries, and a detailed stats system to make it feel more real.

Im running it through a Discord server as a kind of a simulation/worldbuilding project. I'm still in the early stages, so im just sharing it for fun and feedback ❤️ 

Title.

Not holy sites, the opposite. What place does a culture in your world mark so people stay away from it? A drowned valley, a field where a plague burned out, a pass that swallowed a caravan one winter. I am interested in how the avoidance gets encoded once the people who remember why are gone. A shrine you tend, a stone you do not pass after dark, a name left off the map on purpose. What outlives the reason?

Hello, I am posting this universe to proof that I am it's original creator, I have been working on this universe for about 2 years now, I've changed it a lot, revamped it and rewritten it many times over, it is my favourite project because it is original to me and it's so hard to create something unique now days because of how many ideas are taken. I not only am posting this to proof its mine because I have trust issues but I also ask for you're guys feedback. Now I have removed some parts so then I don't get banned and to make sure this stays PG and my post don't get removed but still. No big segment got removed only a few words and sentances but I don't believe that's a problem at all. So I thank you guys for reading this if you do.

The planet, aggregate is massive and is alittle bigger than Earth, the planet has the same gravity and elements as Earth as it's in the same sport as Earth is in its solar system. The gravity is also the same on aggregate. However aggregate contains a lot of very good resources and it is a very rich planet. The planet as a whole contains two major continents on opposite sides of the planet known as the north and the south, however their are many landmasse's around them.
Aggregate is in a dead solar system, every other planet in the solar system has no life and no resources what so ever.
The UD's history:
Before the united districts was a thing the world evolved around many countries, their use to be 585 countries. At the time just before the UD was made the year was 1181, at this time technology and advancements reached it peak however their was an ongoing world war that has started meaning every country was struggling massively. The planet was facing a lack of resources that have never been seen before. Every country was doing poorly. In a result to end the world war, world wars have never been seen before this. Countries pulled together and the created the UD, if a country refused the other countries who agreed would ally against them leading all 585 countries to agree. All the countries became known as districts, the world leaders became known as commissioners and 5 commisoners were elected to become the counsellors. Their alignments became the forever alignments for the future counsellors.
Over time many more districts were made and some districts were made smaller, they tried making all the districts an equal size which led to 800 districts being formed. And at the start of the United Districts every district was equal, they all helped each other equally. Soon the seventh district meeting came about and this is when they decided to split up the districts by wealth, because althrough districts wouldn't been able to claim independence easily they were still able to ensure that they're district was the strongest. So laws came in place that you would have to make sure the district with the number below you were always richer than you, for example if yo were district 527 and you had more money that district 526 you would have to give money to district 526. This was for easier control and for decision.
The first ever district meeting was big and decided if the united districts would be a success because at that point any country could have claimed independence again and restarted the war which could have caused many more districts to become countries again.
The world and districts:
Aggregate contains two major continents with smaller land mass's surrounding them, the two continents are on opposite sides of the planet. government have divided these two continent einto 800 districts, the districts have been decided depending on wealth and status, for example district 1 will be the Richest, cleanest but also most expensive district there is with extremely low crime rate, why district 800 being the filthiest, most damaged, yet cheapest with a extremely high crime rate because not many laws are here.*
The first continent is known as the north united and contains districts 1-200 and 600-800 why the second continent known as the south United which contains districts 201-599.
The country that runs all of the districts I known as the united districts the UD for short.
District 1 has the most laws and are very strict why district 800 only have 1 law, obey the enforcers. Another example is district 400 not to expensive yet not cheap either, average crime rate, not dirty yet doesn't have overly expensive items, the law there is okey not to strict yet enough law so everyone can remain safe.
The districts are filled with slums if there lower class, cities if there higher some have villages, farmland, towns
40% of the two major continents are left alone nature why the other 60% is filled with cities, slums farmland etch...*
Baseline:
District 1 - 300 = upper class
District 301 - 500 =-middle class
District 501 -800 = lower class
In more detail
District 1-100 = top class
District 101-300 = upper class
District 301-500 = middle class
District 501-700 = lower class
District 701-800 = bottom class
Some districts have became nothing but slums.
The word has united in one and the planet has gained the name of "aggregate". The country, TUD, the united districts also has a flag with a purple back ground and a symbol in golden symbol on it the symbol is the Maltese cross, the symbol has a white circle around it aswell. There are also districts flags which are the same thing but the symbol is the districts number instead of the Maltese cross.*
District 600 - 700 begin to loose clean water and electricity so you can only get clean water and electricity in the towns and cities
District 700-800 you can't get clean water or electricity at all, the only place you can find this is in the enforcer stations but it isn't for the public to use.
The government:
The world is overall ran by 5 people, these people are known as the council, each councillor has there own workforce known as there party, each party contains 30 people and each one of those 30 people have there own parties which are known as a faction, each faction has 50 people in so overall there are 7,500 people who work for the government in total, every year one person on the council has to get reelected so they may get swapped out with someone new or they may get to stay, but only one person from the council every year, if they get removed there party and the parties faction may be unemployed if the new councillor chooses to employ new people. Every 5 years all of the councillors have had the chance to go.
The councillors and goverment all work in the same place, the nations capital districts 1 "goverment palace"
The councillors control everything the enforcers, the prisons, the districts, shops, laws, everything Each councillor represent a different alignment, the five are: socialism; fascism; capitalism; liberalism; conservatism
Every district also have a leader which are known as a commissioner, they make big decisions for their district and are aimed to make the district the best it can be. Every year all of the commissioners are invited to the governments palace for the annual district meeting where they discusss how to make the districts better aswell as the country as a whole however normally only the high up commissioners are listened to and the lower down commissioners are ignored. The higher class commissioners are priortised.
Commisoners are elected every 2.6 years. Commisoners run in the commisoners office, a building that stands in their district. The commisoner office's are similar to enforcer stations because no matter what district they're in they always have clean running water and electric. This is why some people want to be commisoners in lower class districts, for the water and electric etc...
The majority of the time the upper class and goverment hate the lower class and sometimes even the middle class hate the lower class and sometimes the higher class hates the middle class. A lot of lower class even hate the higher class for being selfish and greedy.
Enforcers.
Enforcers are the police of this world, a station for the enforcers is built in every district, enforcers are paid well and given anything they may require, fast cars, good weapons etch... they were big heavy gear that's blue and black, they're helmets contain a visor and gas mask covering there identity.
Enforcers undergo tough trainings to become enforcers, they're faced with brutality and every kind of torture, they given physiological tests aswell as physical ones.
Enforcers who are hard working and dedicated can earn medals of honour, there are four different medals, each medal is in a different material/colour yet all in the shape of the Maltese cross, the medals are:
Bronze medal (you get this medal by doing something outstanding)
Silver medal (you get this medal by doing multiple outstanding things)
Gold medal (for enforcers with the most skill and determination)
Platinum medal (only the best enforcers get this reward)
Why Some enforcers are corrupt and accept bribes or abuse there power for there own selfish gain, if they're caught there punished yet most of the time they're not, other enforcers are professional, strict and law obeying.
The main enforcers headquarters was put in district 400 so it can be close to everything, the main headquarters is put right on top of a central train station, this also means the enforcers have there own trains for getting around and for taking criminals to prison.
Prisons are placed on private islands surrounding the main two mega-continents so they're even harder to escape from, the court system is tough but fast as each case has a judge and 10 jury who are chosen at random, the jurtu decides if your guilty or not and if you found guilty the judge will pick your sentence, the judge options are prison, execution, supervision (probation), public work (jury service), public humiliation, torture etch... The court system is fast and criminals can often get a trail on the same day as there arrest sometimes if they're busy the day after. Arrestees are held in the station until there trial.
Punishments in more context:
Prison time: sent to one of the many prisons for how long judge states
Execution: either killed privately or a public execution judge states, killed by either being hanged, stoned, beheaded, lethal injection, electric chair, burned at the stake, drowned, crucified, shot, stabbed etch...
Supervision: have meeting with a enforcer once every week and they give you a aim to meet every week if you don't do it you get punished further
Public work: judge will state what work to do e.g. picking litter judge will state how many hours
Fined: being forced to pay a certain fee, judge decides the fee.
Public humiliation: judge will state how long for but humiliation methods involve public cage etch..
Torture: whipped, judge will state how many times, limbs amputated, judge will state what part of your body, beat up, stoned, pricked etch...
Prisons are harsh, they don't care about age, gender or race everyone is treated just as shitty, in these prisons you will be forced to work, you will get no free time and you will get very little food or drink, the intake process is even more harsh as they strip you everything with no privacy, they'll search you, check you, wash you, deal with you Id chip etch... anything they feel necessary inmates are only given a thick dark red jumpsuit with orange lines on the shoulders and arms and nothing more, they are forced to shower every so often with no privacy and sometimes they are tortured, but what's worst is that the enforcers there don't care if another inmate hurts you as long as you work when you're told to work and you don't escape or hurt and enforcer.
For anyone in large amounts of debt and the Goverment don't believe that they are able to pay it of, they are sent and forced into a debt facility where they will be forced to work for a certain amount of years until their debt is paid off. People can also put them self in a debt facility, however if you choose to go in yourself you can technically choose to leave whenever you want. Althrough the facility don't give you many clothes, the debt facility does feed you and give you basic medical care. The people who go into these facilities are called residents. And they're given a few rags to wear. The debthouses are often filthy and can sometime be worsted than prison, just easier to escape from. Workhouses are only located in districts 500 and below.
Technology and objects:
Technology is both good and bad, their is many good technology here but some pieces of technology are still non existent. you become a cyborg when your missing a part of your body yet some pay more to become a cyborg even if there healthy because it can enhance abilities, give you new abilities and expand life spam yet becoming a cyborg isn't cheap
Guns and cars are still the same, yet electric versions have been invented of both there are also self driving cars now
Robots are now about and there are lots of different models that do a lot of different things, yet there expensive, these robots work in hospitals, work with enforcers, clean homes etch
Now a days people can live up to the age of 150 and the life expectancy has reached to 125 years old but unfortunately the age of retirement has also increased to 82 years old for females and 85 year old for males
There are also now a lot more food and drink options
Boats have now become a lot cheaper due to how useless they are now, they're only use is to get to private islands or to go fishing
Nutritional blocks, originally made for prison, disgusting blocks of nutrition gave inmates all the nutrition they need, yet they weren't that nice. Over time lower class citizens started eating them due to there cheap price and nutritional values, not long after foavoured nutritional blocks released yet for abit more money... these nutrition blocks are called NB and flavoured are called a FNB, they have lots of different flavours
Transport;
Transportation through districts is harsh with identification needed, to get to one district to another you can either take a vehicle and go through a border to get to a neighbouring district which isn't that strict or you can take a train to get to a completely different district which there very strict on, you can also take a aircraft to get to a different district which is even stricter, when someone wants to move or travel to a different district either to stay there or just as a day trip enforcers are strict, the person has to have enough money to move to a higher and you must know the laws of that district but to move to a Lower district enforcers must warn you off that it may be slightly more dangerous and that things will be cheaper but living there will earn you less money etch... and after you move down you may not move back up again. When you move through districts and pass through secruity checks you, you will have to show your ID chip.
It's way easier to move down to a lower class than it is too move up to a higher class etch
Citizens and law:
Every person has there identification chip also known as I'd implanted in there dominant wrist when they are a baby, this chip has the identification number in, there virtual bank balance, the chip also allows the government to track them and hospitals to check there vitals easily.
Also the legal age for sex is 15 with permission from your guardian if you have one if not it is still 16, yet you need to be atleast 17 to get married with guardian permission if you don't have guardian permission you must wait until your 18. Your allowed to drink and consume legal drugs or alcohol when you reach the age of 15 with guardians permission if not you must wait until your 17 .you must also be atleast 18 to drive But non of these age constrictions apply in bottom class and some lower class districts.
The higher the district the more laws there are and the stricter the law, the lower the district the less laws there are yet one law is word wild, the law is that you are not allowed to harm or steal from an enforcer or government official and you must listen to them at all times, even privately owned islands have to listen to this law. Oh and they also follow the law that your not allowed to remove your IDC (identification chip)
Protesting and striking is another crime that's illegal every where as its consider treason and it isn't taken lightly...
There are many illegal organisations, yet in bottom class districts all those organisations become legal because the bottom class don't have many laws so slaves are legal, all drugs are legal, this is normally where big illegal organisations make stuff to sell in other districts, yet if a organisation interferes with another district and what they're doing is illegal they can still be raided. Because of the lack of laws on bottom class districts sometimes the rich will come along and buy a place to do a range of activities.
Slavery is legal in district 550 and below
*Believes:*
More traditional people believe the males are more important than females and males shall be prioritized, many traditional faies also believe that the father owns there daughter if they have one until the daughter is married, the daughter is normally get put into an arranged marriage in these traditional families, traditional families are normally more middle or upper class people
The majority of People believe that you should stay in the district you were born and raised in and not move as many districts dislike each other e.g. upper class hating lower class and lower class hating the upper class etch... this is because different classes and people believe in different things for example in bottom districts, being naked is seen as common and regular, but in top classes if you're naked in public your most likely going to get arrested.
Currency:
Credits = ¢x
Creds 0 ¢0.x
A credit is a small metal square coin with a circular hole in the center and have symbols on
A cred is a small metal triangle coin with a triangular hole in the center and symbols on
A lot of people who are really lower class like people in district 799 can't even afford clothes and lives in slums, the majority there roam around with very little clothing due to poverty and if they do have clothes it's normally random dirty bits of cloth they find ways to use it to cover themselves a little. They struggle to afford things like food or clothes, diseases are common there and they can't afford health care
Charities do exist in this world but charities just raise money to add new buildings in low class districts, they don't actually give the lower class citizens.
Education:
Normally lower class citizens and even some middle class citizens don't get an education due to the price off school, the school system works as younglings school --> teens school --> collage. yet in this world all education is optional yet to be successful you need to get an education
In the education system you don't just get a new grade every time you do a test, every test is important from the other because you're grade only goes up or down from the last grade you have, that's why the first ever test you do in younglings school is so important because it is the only one where you actually get given a grade instead of you're grading going up or down, your grade goes up and down by you doing different tests and it doesn't matter the school or subject, the grades are:
1+= you've exceeded 90% of tests
1 = youve passed 90%+ of tests
1-= you've exceeded 75% of tests
2+= you've exceeded 35.5% of tests and passed 75% of tests
2 = you've passed 75%+ of test
2-= you've exceeded 25%+ of tests and passed 50%+ of tests
3+ you've exceed 15%+ of tests and passed 50%+ of tests
3 = you've passed 50%+ of tests
3- you've passed 40%+ of tests
4+ = you've flopped 20%+ of tests and failed 40%+ of tests
4 = you've failed 50%+ of tests
4- you've flopped 40%+ of tests and failed 50%+ of tests
5+ you've flopped 35.5%+ of tests and failed 75%+ of tests
5 = youve failed 75%+ of tests
5- = you've flopped more than 50%+ of tests
The grade that you get drifts what jobs may be offered to you, if you did not go to education when you reach the age of 16 you're force to do a judgement paper which will estimately give you a grade yet people who don't got to education and have to do this paper fails 90% of the time, if you do go to education you don't do this paper and you're grade is decided over every test you've ever done. People in middle class and higher class districts can pay to be allowed to due the judgment paper yet it's expensive because it resets there grade.
Career paths, career paths are based on you're grade's a decides what jobs are offered to you, this is mainly important for you in higher or middle class districts in lower class districts it's normally "find your own damn job" but the grade career paths equal =
1 = any job you want
2 = any job aslong as it isn't taken and no one above you want to take it
3 = any job above you aslong as someone above you don't want it
4 = you don't get any jobs above you and you're pick is between the lower jobs, unless someone who is higher than you wants it which is unlikely
5 = you don't get to choose, you're given your job
Now every person who gets a job always starts at the bottom of that organisation chain of commands and have to work there way up through promotions, at any point if someone find themself unemployed you are given another job if you get fired three times you'll move to a lower district, if you can't afford the district you'll move down and you can also pick to move down.
Lower class districts have to find there own damn job and aren't given one, there grades don't do anything really yet it might help them find a job... might...
The first two schools junior school and senior school expand you're knowledge why being able to lower or increase you're grade, you're at junior school you're there until the age of 5-11 why at senior school your there for the age 12-16/17 and then you have the choice to go to a principal (basically collage) which either leaves you're grade alone or increase's it, principals can only decrease you're grade by what they added meaning of you get a grade 3 principals can't lower the grade, unless they add a grade then they can remove a grade etch... there are lots of different subjects
In some districts such as higher class districts if you don't go to education you are looked down on for being uneducated.
Entertainment;
Sports, there are many type of sports in this world but 3 big ones
Fighting; competers fight in a stadium each stadium has a ring aka a dome in the ground with thousands is seat around, many people fight, two people fight at a time traditionally it was to the death now it's just whoever gets knocked out first
Parkour; stadiums are built with obstacles in for people to attempt to complete, there failure is often mocked and enjoyed, often random people do parkour for others entertainment and for money yet you also have people who do it professionally
Bot bashing; traditionally popular in lower class districts but soon because popular world wide, people build small robots and fight them until one is destroyed the winner traditionallly gets to keep the opponents robot remains but now professionally gets money
Many people have many other forms of entertainment if they have the money such as cinema, theatre, video games, boredgames etch...
Another big this people do as entertainment is go to big famous aggregate rallies
sera site:
Sera is a massive site on a private island ran by government official, the site is very confidential and only the highest enforcers get to work there, scientists use the site for lots of experiments it's rumoured they used to or still do experiments on people using them as test subjects, everyone that works there is strictly not allowed to tell the public anything and if they do they will be executed in private, and the government will make up some excuse, no one really knows what they do at site 8 but it's a massive facility with a lot of big buildings*
Some say weapons are made in there like nothing, why others say it's a place of future where technology is designed but some... some thinks that's they do awful tests on people...
They're trying to make some super solider syrup for there enforcers, to enhance there ability's
It's called syrum A, which actually just turns people into uncontrollable monsters
Their is then syrum B which actually can successfully enhance a persons abilities
(Ask for alot more info on seras origin)
Pirates:
Pirates exist, but not as most will remember them, some people live on boats so they don't have to be apart of the united districts, they go to land when they need to collect resources if it's by buying or stealing, some pirates may be solo why others have big crews or even multiple boats, pirates aren't as hostile as they use to be as they're pirates now to escape aggregates, piracy can be seen as illegal if they steal or vandalise anything in aggregate but if not aggregate doesn't really care, as long as the pirates don't go anywhere they're not meant to. Pirates normally fish for there food and purify sea water so they don't have to go to land very often and regarding boats, they're boat is often big sail boats so they don't need fuel, if the boats need fuel that would mean they'd have to go to land to get more fuel which may be a risk if they're illegal pirates. Sometimes pirates raid tribes as tribes are easy to take down and they can gain resources from them. Without worrying about aggregate.
Tribes:
The world isn't just the united districts, there are many tribes who are not apart of aggregate in this world, these tribes often live in some the many islands yet very phew do live in the untouched land of the main major continents, these tribes make everything they have, they make tents, huts, there clothes, there clothes are often things like grass skirts for girls and things like loincloths for boys etch... many tribe people wear body paint, and everyone in these tribes have a part to play, the tribes leave aggregate alone because they know they'd be know match for aggregates army of enforcers yet they don't know much about aggregate, and yes some tribes have slaves, these slaves come from captured enemies either when they're at war with another tribe or if someone stumbles in there territory by mistake.
If one of these tribes do get to advanced and aggregate finds out, the tribe will be out in their place and taken over by aggregate. Yet these tribes are very skilled.
More detail on tribes:
They call themself's natives and call anyone else a "aggregater" if they were still native but from another tribe they'd just call them there tribes name. And they only speak simple English. Natives only had first names Why there last name was there title instead of a name
They believe the land is sacred and they shouldn't do deforestation and what not that's why the natives only take what they need, they do not have greed.
They lived in tipis that could be packed up and moved easily via horses but they also built huts and transformed caves and things to live in because not all natives moved around only a phew of them moved but the majority stayed in one place yet they'd move if they'd have to. Often families lived together.
The natives are very good at crafting and could craft a lot of different things, things that aggregaters would find difficult such as special boats, bows, spear's, swords, clothes all to a very high standard. Yet the Indians didn't believe in gun's because of its complexity and how it isn't as natural as a bow, the natives only use to thing's like bow's and spear's because of there belief's, they believe in the land given to them not the land they don't have access to as such or it would be a hell to get to such as the mines.
The natives never mind and only get resources from the surface, one of the reasons why they don't use gun's, equally some natives farm but mostly only the ones that stay in one place, natives also hunt
Natives are mostly naked a lot of the time wearing what they have access to do such as hide sometimes, leafes or grass, coconuts, fur, whatever they can get hold of and equally the natives painted on themself, the colours and symbols they had painted on them served as medals for things, the chief could give you the colour/pattern/symbol for doing good and the more paint you had on you the more you were valued (paint was made out of all shirts) althrough when the natives washed or it was raining they did have to put it on themself's again but normally it can last in the rain well.yet all natives did have feathers in there hear it's why they didn't really wear hats, the feathers showed there rank for example the chief would have 3 feathers in his hair why an elder would have 2 and others would have one, if they were not a native they wouldn't have any in there hair, the fathers were often flat yet sometimes they were and sometimes they didn't just use hair to keep it in place but also rope
Natives often went to wore with each other or had alliances, they could arrange marriages, trades or organise battles together. Every tribe had one chief to lead the tribe yet if enough people didn't agree with the chief they wouldn't have had to listen to him they can refuse. There are also elders which Shen you reach a certain age you become an elder meaning you have gained the experience and knowledge to guide people and help the chief with some decisions. All natives hate aggregates.
The natives celebrate and dance and feast everytime a new person is born into the tribe and give the baby paint for the first time. This is done when someone is married also in the tribe and when someone died to mourn or if there was a battle and a phew people died they will do a ritual.
The natives believe in magic and spirits they believe in visions, future telling and that stuff.
Some natives also have slaves and prisoners, often it is someone from a different tribe that they have captured or they're not a native and have trespassed on there territory, some are killed by the natives in a ritual and others are kept as slaves to work or be exchanged for there own natives that have been captured. The prisoners are often kept almost naked to naked and are stripped of feathers and pain. And could have been killed or ate (if they were cannablist tribe) also they would have punished there own natives in the tribe if they did something wrong such as steal or kill there own sometimes banished.
The natives fought with weapons such as whips, axe's, swords, bows, sometimes a crossbow and so much more yet also did ride animals like horses without a saddle to fight. They used all kind of stragaties to a win a fight and could have been a threat to aggregate.
Natives dating was casuall, after two natives decided to get together they would have to wait until marriage to actually reproduce and in order for them to marriage atleast one next of kin from both families would have had to agree in order for the marriage to take place and then they would have been able to reproduce. it was also seen by the natives that a native family owned or atleast had control over there kid of any age until there kid got marriage and got more freedom, also you could not get devorced.
The strongest, smartest and bravest man would have the chance to become chief, chief wasn't meant for women (what natives believed) the native men often did different and more painful jobs to the native women yet the native women did the more boring jobs,
Kids - anyone that wasn't married was taught by the elder's or there parent's and they weren't given proper jobs among the tribe until they were married, if they weren't married by a certain age they would be put in a arrange married, the majority get married from the age of 15 - 20 and if not they're put in a arranged marriage, yet in some cases they can marry even earlier as long as both family agree's and the chief doesn't have a problem with it. Also those who aren't married can only get married to other kids not anyone who isn't a kid which is married. Also you only get married once.
Some tribes abandon elders when they get too old and weak

I keep running into settings with elaborate afterlives and no sense of what a funeral actually costs the living. Somebody has to dig, or burn, or embalm, and somebody has to eat the cost when a plague fills the ground faster than the rites can keep up. In a lot of real societies burial debt outlived the corpse and bound families for a generation. I am curious how you handle the logistics of death in yours, not the metaphysics but the bill. Who buries the poor, what happens when the customary rite becomes unaffordable, and does anyone quietly profit from it?

Every map I draw eventually hits the same wall: the interesting goods are the ones that do not survive the trip. Fresh fish, medicine, news that still matters, a witness who has to testify in person. Roads and ships solve distance but not time, and a lot of a world's politics is really just who controls the few things that beat the clock. Ice houses, relay riders, salt, preserving magic if you have it. So I am curious how yours handles it: what spoils faster than it travels, and who got rich or powerful by fixing that?

In our own history a calendar is rarely neutral. Someone decides which event counts as the beginning, and everything before it gets renumbered or forgotten. One region counts from a founding, another from a flood, a temple keeps its own reckoning that drifts a decade off everyone else.

What pulls me in is that a single clean timeline usually hides the fact that one reckoning simply outlasted the rest. The richer version is when a scholar has to convert between two systems just to date an old letter, and the mismatch between them turns out to matter.

How does deep time work in your world? Do different peoples keep competing counts of the years, and what happens at the seams where those systems meet?

Half the fantasy economies I actually believe hinge on something boring being worth a fortune for an unmagical reason. Not the glowing crystal, but the one clay that fires without cracking, or salt that just happens to sit three weeks closer to the coast than anyone else's. The magic gets the spotlight, but the mundane bottleneck is usually what moves power around. So what is the unglamorous valuable thing in your world, and what makes it worth so much? Not the artifact, the stuff people quietly fight over because it is a pain to get.

#GUIDELINES AND ETIQUETTE

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Untranslatable words tell you where two cultures diverged in what they bothered to notice. In one corner of the world I am building, the coastal traders have a single word for the specific trust you extend to someone whose face you will never see again after a deal closes, and the inland cities, who trade with the same families for generations, have no word for it at all because the situation never comes up for them. It changed how I write their misunderstandings: the traders read the inlanders as naive, the inlanders read the traders as cold, and neither has the vocabulary to name what the other is actually protecting. What single word does one of your cultures carry that a neighbor would need a whole clumsy sentence for, and what does that gap say about how they live differently?

Greetings! Beware, it's a long read!

I am Danya and I have crossed the line of typical dnd adventures and started making my own setting but with some pretty big connections with Faerune in Forgotten Realms.

So, to cut things short:

I have been wondering about Netheril and Karsus (surprising, I know) in a different perspective. He was a genius that could destroy balance of magic on a whole continent. But his demise or godhood are still a topic of debates.

In my setting he made magic cores out of souls catched by Phaerimms (that were his project all along) and teleported those magic cores to the new continent, isolated from others (like Australia with according width and length). Where he could play role of the Ao himself and unanimously guided survivors of netheril and others who joined them to the promised lands with different kind of magical powers - those magic cores.

Well, as some of you might see. I slightly dislocated already existing Halruaa peninsula and made out of it the whole continent. But I didn't like Halruaa in its classic form. In the form that still is not prohumanistic. On their own eyes Karsus killed a powerful god and still in the canonic version that are praying to those creatures.

So 1000+ years humanity lived isolated on this continent and made many industrial breakthroughs, but we are not talking about steam or diesel (but engines on those types exists too but in particular places), those who can afford it use items powered by particles called magons.

Due my bachelor's degree in nanotechnology I tried to make something of quantum physics really interesting.

There is no weave in my setting, because it's Mystra's territory. Everyone on the continent believe that everything can be made by human and all the power of theirs belief in the end transform to the divine energy for Karsus so he tries to stay concealed before his servants being a secret ruler of his continent.

There are 3 layers of our cake that I called "Diameters", each of them are called by the metals: bronze, silver and gold accordingly. As you can imagine from the naming they represents different types of wealth between its citizens. But we are not doing this in the way "rich is bad", we are doing it smoking xenophobic style, because divers or interhumans (all humanoid but nonhuman races) after some Civil wars were deported to the bronze and silver diameter and they started different ways of technology like fuel engines, electricity and in the late iterations - nuclear energy.

Inters cannot use magic but can use magical items made by magic cores.

Humans can use magic because if the parents are wealthy enough they can use those magic cores to implant it to the newborn child's heart with the procedure called "The Endowment" and then child will grow with this magic core and use its abilities like typical caster in dnd.

There are 7 Great Families that rule the Empire and analogies of modern corporations called Manufactures, that release products of different quality and monopolising different parts of the market each. Each one of this manufactures have different motto, products and belongs to the particular family.

So this world in the way that we play it now with my friends is something that have aesthetic of the roaring 20's, elements of art deco punk and clean energy that powered by souls of citizens of Netheril but nobody knows that.

I would love to hear your opinions and discuss this topic, I really want to develop this setting and I see a lot of unharnessed potential within it. I would also love to learn from my experienced colleagues about some utility programs or tips to build to help me improve. Thank you for your attention!

Heyy guys!! Giants are my favorite fantasy creature and I see a lot of people make them into a group of People who belonged to a ancient fallen Empire, but in the present they reverted to living within small tribes and/or are turned into Nethanderthals but bigger. These are fine takes of course but I'm interested in a some unusual takes on Giants!!

So if you got any interesting ideas/takes on Giants shoot them here.

(For the tag I couldn't choose between the Bestiary and Culture prompt so I chose the general prompt.)
(I was looking in the subreddit and saw a lot of Kaiju spam and giant mecha spam, this post is preferably for Giants, but you can post kaiju or mecha if you want as long as they're unique.)

So I've been considering this for a day or two. Salt is used as a preservative for meats and other organic materials. Used to prevent decay and thus is the perfect element to play with for magics of healing or survival or even memory if you think about it.

I thought it would be extremely interesting if salt could absorb and preserve memories or even entire souls. I feel like either would change the appearance of the salt. Making its color change maybe. The more full the soul it absorbs, the redder it becomes maybe.

Use of this salt would allows one to commune with the spirit within or learn what they know.

As blood sacrifice is how most magic works in my world, I could see the mixing the salt with blood being a tool to channel or attune to the entity within.

This magic could be used to learn the history of an area or event. Or maybe even take on skills that were accumulated by the soul you attune to.

I could see cults forming around a pile of blood salt that has captured a swordsman or something that was extremely proficient in combat pooling their blood together into the salt to gain their skills. Maybe when the cultists die, their soul is also trapped within the salt and their knowledge is passed onto the next generation of cultists.

Hello! I'm a huge fan of world building and I would like some opinions on a concept I'm working on.

I write stories that have vampires in them. In my books the vampire and humans are integrated, separate, or in the process of becoming integrated. This gave me an idea of having a local blood bank for local communities where vampires and humans live together and coexist. My only thing is how exactly it would work.

Humans will donate blood by having their blood drawn and the blood will go in a blood bank for vampires. Each vampire would be a registered citizen and will require/need a certain amount of blood every so often. As a citizen, they are to have blood accessible to them to prevent the harm or killing of humans.

Just some questions for anyone who feels like suggesting anything:

How often would vampires need blood? (For example; every week or 4 times a month)

How much blood do you think they would in relation to the answer above?

How would the blood bank stay full? (There's bound to be people who don't want to or can't donate blood and I don't think it's ethical to force everyone to donate) In other words, what would happen in case of a blood shortage?

And do you think there's anything that's missing?

I'm working on a low fantasy world and I'd love some feedback on the overall coherence of the species mix, as well as thoughts on how to handle sapient non-humans in a way that feels like actual species rather than just humans wearing animal costumes.

The Setting at a Glance

Magic is either minimal or absent — I haven't decided yet. What I have decided is that the world is roughly 4x the size of Earth in terms of both land and sea area, and there's a substantial hollow-earth style cavern network beneath it that functions as its own ecosystem zone. The world supports life across a much wider temporal range of species than Earth currently does, which is a deliberate choice — I just like deep-time fauna existing alongside each other.

The Fauna Mix

The deepest survivors are Permian-esque holdovers — think Lystrosaurus-type dicynodonts persisting in isolated refugia. There are still flying reptiles (pteranodontids and relatives) and fully marine reptiles (mosasaurs, plesiosaur-adjacent forms) in the oceans and skies. Most of the "standard" megafauna, however, sits in the Pliocene-to-Pleistocene range — mammoths, giant ground sloths, that sort of company.

Where it gets deliberately divergent from Earth: no true equines exist. No horses, no donkeys, no zebras. In the Europe-analogue regions, the ecological niche has been filled by derived rhinoceros relatives — some of these have convergently evolved a more horse-like body plan, and yes, one lineage has a single prominent nasal/frontal horn, so "unicorns" here are essentially rhino-horse cousins rather than magical creatures. Tapir-derived ungulates fill similar roles elsewhere. South American native ungulates — your litopterns, notoungulates — never went extinct here and are still doing their thing. All bovines are present and accounted for. The fauna is meant to feel genuinely alien to someone expecting standard fantasy wildlife, but grounded in real evolutionary logic.

The Sapient Species — and the Problem I Keep Running Into

This is where I'd really love input. I have humans, and then a range of non-human peoples. The "classic" fantasy types are present — elves, dwarves, orcs — but I'm trying to resist treating every sapient species as just a reskinned human with a cultural aesthetic stapled on.

The species I'm most uncertain about how to approach are the ones with significant non-human physiologies:

• Minotaurs, Satyrs/Fauns — bovine and cervid/caprine people respectively. These aren't just "buff human with horns" — I want their physicality to actually mean something. A minotaur's digestive system, sensory range, the social role of horn display — these should shape their cultures in ways you couldn't just hand to a human character.
• Merfolk — fully aquatic or amphibious? What does sapience look like when your entire material culture has to work underwater? Tool use, communication, concept of territory — all of this changes.
• Cynocephalians — my working name for the dog-folk cluster of peoples. There are at least three distinct groups here: Dog Kobolds (smaller, pack-bonded, den-dwelling, probably eusocial-adjacent), Dogmen (larger, more varied, filling a broad ecological/cultural range), and a third group colloquially called "Werewolves" — I'm not going for the horror monster angle, more like a people whose morphology and behaviour pattern reads as threatening to outsiders. High-scent, nocturnal or crepuscular, potentially with a very different relationship to hierarchy and territory than other sapients.

My big question with all of these: how do you build a sapient species that feels like a species rather than a demographic? I want their non-human traits to affect epistemology, not just aesthetics — how they understand time, kinship, property, death. But I also don't want to fall into the trap of making them so alien they can't function as characters in a story.

The Core Question

How do you balance all of this — prehistoric holdovers alongside modern fauna, no horses but rhino-horses, South American ungulates living alongside mammoths, and a sapient ecosystem where some people have rumens and some navigate by scent-memory — without it feeling like a random grab-bag? Is there a way to give it internal coherence that goes beyond "the world is just bigger and weirder"? Has anyone done something similar they'd point me toward?

Hello beatiful creators,

I'm curious regarding the tools you use when you start creating new world. In my case I usually have those ideas coming at the most random times, so I sometimes write them down on paper, or quickly tap out on the phone.

When it comes to you, which tools have you used? If you have as an annoying idea generating mind as mine?

Magic and dragons get the spotlight, but I am always more drawn to the load-bearing parts: who enforces an edict, who keeps the ledgers, who pays when it all goes wrong. The administration is where a world stops feeling like a stage set and starts feeling lived-in. What is the boring, unglamorous system in your world that you put real thought into?

https://preview.redd.it/jg5g7fclcaah1.jpg?width=764&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2fd5cb56b529892740691237a182e92957a9bc22

When our parents went to sleep, we kept going. the result is pax-axum.lovable.app

Our father told us about our heritage when he had time. Yoruba names and their meanings, the greatness of the Benin Empire, the kings who were also priests. Our mother fed our imaginations every night with tales of Roland, Joan of Arc and Saint Francis of Assisi.

When they went to bed, the three of us kept telling each other stories in the dark.

That was twenty years ago.

We are brothers. Two twins and a younger sibling, of Ugandan and Nigerian heritage, raised between London, Kampala, China, and the United States. We have spent twenty years building a world we needed to exist. We built it the way families build things: imperfectly, collaboratively, stubbornly, with arguments that lasted years and decisions that only made sense in retrospect.

The result is The Wooden Bible. This is what it is about. On graduation day, Edubis of Axum wakes before the bells.

He has spent six years sleeping beside the communal toilet at the Seminary of the Prophet. Not by accident. Nothing in that institution is accidental. They wanted him to know his place.

He washes in cold water. Dresses in silence. Goes to the ceremony.

He finds his name on the ranking board.

Scripture: Exemplary. Tactical History: Exemplary. Languages: Exemplary. Logic: Exemplary. Combat: Exemplary.

Then: Communal Temperament, Deficient. Spiritual Obedience, Deficient. Recommended Ecclesiastical Rank, Denied.

A clerk hands him a military conscription notice and says congratulations while already looking for someone whose future matters.

He reads his name twice.

Not because he misunderstood it.

Because some stupid animal part of him had hoped. The world Edubis moves through draws structurally from the Kingdom of Benin, the Holy Roman Empire, the Mongol Empire, the Axumite Kingdom, the Islamic Golden Age, the Aztec and Maya civilisations, the Lakota and Haudenosaunee nations. Not as decoration, but as the skeleton of how power, religion, and collapse actually work.

At the centre of it is the Church of Balance. An institution that has decided, in advance, who is worthy. That controls what people remember. That corrects rather than punishes, always corrects, the way you shave rot from meat.

The Wooden Bible is not a book of scripture. It is a method. A way of understanding how gods, places, names, wounds, and human beings bind to one another. The Church found one piece of it and built a civilisation around the claim that the piece was the whole.

Edubis knows otherwise. We did not set out to write a political book. We set out to write about people. But people exist inside systems, and systems have consequences, and eventually the story insisted on being honest about that.

We followed it.

This is the epic fantasy we needed when we were children telling each other stories in the dark. We built it for our younger selves. And for anyone who has ever been told that a people can be unmade.

They cannot.

Chapter One is free to read. Happy to go deep on the world, the religions, the civilisations, the characters, any of it. This is the part we love most. Ask question we give feed back love it hate it we want to know.