r/worldbuilding

There are various theoretical frameworks on the elements, including the atomic and the behavioral. All cognitive beings have the ability to command the elements due to an innate property known as mana. For mortals, command over mana takes rigorous physical and/or mental training. Personality may influence one's affinity for a certain element, however mana-benders often learn the elements associated with their clan or profession. Hemo is the element common to both blood and wine, pulsing with vitality while clouding the mental facilities. Argyr is the element of metal, though in practice acts as the poison element. Metals such as iron or copper are only partially Argyr, mixed with Geo and other elements. In its most basic form it resembles quicksilver.

Hey there, everyone. It's been a while. Where have I been? Busy. Doing what? School and other stuff. Am I back to posting regularly? I never did post regularly, but I'll likely make more of these when I'm in the mood. What’s with the S? This is a smaller one, so yeah. Got that out of the way? Good. The comic above will serve as a reference for the points I make later in the text.

Realistic dialogue is one of the hardest parts of writing any story. The ability to make words that people can hear in their heads naturally is not an easy task. The single most important advice I can offer in this regard, in a similar vein to a VERY controversial post of mine from a while back, is to just read revered fiction and nonfiction. They're famous for a reason.

One matter I frequently notice among newer writers who struggle writing realistic dialogue is the sheer scale of influence from anime, cartoons, pop cinema, and Tumblr wit culture. It’s not that these sources (save for the last one) are inherently bad at dialogue. Some are; Some are not, but ultimately, many are diluted in dialogue realism in favor of communication and narrative accessibility. Watching a DnD campaign or indie animated works is inefficient realistic dialogue reference material because realism isn’t their purpose; drama and comedy are. In fact, enjoyers of such content often don’t realize how this sounds to an uninvested audience because fans become accustomed to the style and stop noticing how stylized it is.

For instance, you can sometimes audibly hear where one of the writers wrote out a stutter as “I- I don’t know,” and the VA interpreted it very literally. This works in text because you’re going from speech into words to convey a stutter to a reader. However, the second you go back to words from the interpolated text, it sounds clunky without proper improvisation. Now imagine if all of your ideas of what dialogue sounds like came from works like that; you’d risk using stuttering, sass, and emotional fragments way too much and unnaturally, as those are your only examples of dialogue. That’s how dialogue often sounds when produced by modern inexperienced writers; it’s a feedback loop of fandom culture animatics and unanalyzed fiction flagship titles. Many writers understand that they like the writing quality and aesthetic of established works, but they fail to analyze why they like them and how they work. I can’t change all that in a single Reddit post, but here are a few myths I’d like to identify for your benefit.

“No one talks like that.”

You probably don’t talk like that (that being more "fancy"), but there are many people who talk in their day-to-day lives with more verbosity or a wider lexicon than the average person. England was specifically stereotyped in this manner by Americans for much of the 20th century. This isn’t a matter of trying to sound smart; some people really just talk like that. In the first panel, we ask a young woman if she wants anything from the store. She responds with a direct “yes” and provides specific details on what she wants. She also says that she’ll reimburse us when we get back. She could have said “sure” or “yeah,” but that’s not how she talks. She phrases her request with a direct verb of buying and uses less common vocabulary to communicate a specific idea of paying off a debt. There’s no realistic depiction of a panic attack, no “Y-you’re asking me? I… guess I’d like some cherry ice cream...” She simply tells you what she wants. People absolutely do talk like this. Going outside and listening to the world around you is very important to understanding how people talk.

TL;DR: "I don't talk like that, so no one does" is a very reductive mindset. Don't do it.

Wealthy = Fancy

Many people have an inherent correlation between wealth and how people talk, but this isn’t the case. Upbringing has far more impact on how people speak. In the second panel, we see an upper-class businessman talking to us about our recent loss. However, he speaks business casual, a dialect that an American middle-class man who moved up the socioeconomic ladder cannot magically unlearn. Established upper class and carryover nobility are unlikely to use slang, but the middle, upper middle-class, and 1 percent are actually incredibly likely to use standard nationalized slang. “Yeah” is used interchangeably with “yes,” and “nah” is used to emphasize disagreement with an idea in friendly passing. Many writers forget that the majority of billionaires are self-made men from the working or middle classes. They speak with greater diction and use less popular slang, but business casual terms are everywhere in their speech. Listen to businessmen talk at conferences or conventions and you’ll be surprised how plainly they match standard American English with familiar endearment.

TL;DR: Money does not determine how you speak, unless in a deliberate attempt to justify or match wealth. Background is more significant in this regard.

Realistic dialects don't equate to bad grammar

This section requires the most careful nuance. If you want your work to fit into the timelessness of the renowned Western fiction canon, grammar and vocabulary must match a certain style. Try not to use “ok, yeah, crap, drats, literally” in your text, or you will immediately break the mental plausibility of it being a non-time specific fiction title. Those are habits of modern writers that readers will notice. However, if you don’t mind some aging for realism, then use of dialect and well-established slang is effective. In the third panel, we ask an older man from the Bible Belt about the best local place for fishing. He responds as if he were talking to another local, communicating ideas that the average reader might not get but a local will. He tells us it depends on what fish we want, recommends good bait to guarantee a bite, suggests instructions on how to cook it (people from the South can infer what this means, possibly including batter or bread crumbs), and he finishes with a warm reflection on the meal. The dropped “d” in “baked potato” maintains vocal rhythm, and several words are dropped, but someone who’s been growing up around those voices and dialects understands what he’s saying.

This is actually a far more common phenomenon than you may realize. Many dialects of the same language have different grammar patterns and definitions that communicate different ideas. For instance, in the case of Ebonics, someone who hears the words “He be workin’.” may simply understand a referenced person as having a job. However, if you grew up hearing some of your family speak Ebonics as I have, a deeper idea is being communicated. The referenced individual’s job fills a significant amount of his time, possibly to an exorbitant extent that few people see him. Many dialects are contextual like this, a phenomenon only complicated by slang. “Bad” in Ebonics means good/skilled, attractive, and bad depending on context, leading to phrases like “I’m a bad motherfucka,” “She bad as shit,” and “Lil bad ass kids.” Also, notice the nuance of “I’m a” instead of “Imma,” which would imply a future intention or state of being rather than identification to those familiar with written Ebonics. The same rules apply for Appalachian English, Scottish English, various Patois, and creoles. If you’re writing a dialect that you’re unfamiliar with, either do extensive research or ask someone familiar with it to help you write it. A common problem with writers is exaggerating misspellings that an actual speaker wouldn’t type or write. Speakers of Ebonics understand the spoken pronunciation of "get yo" is pronounced as "ge-chio" (or "gehccio" in Italian Google Translate). However, we wouldn't write it as "gechyo" or anything else; get yo is unspoken but everyone who knows it knows how it sounds.

TL;DR: Dialects of spoken English often don't follow standard grammar and definitions. Use these to your advantage to write realistic (though possibly dated) characters who will mean more to those who relate to them. (P.S., calling yourself bad in a sense of skill sounds old as shit, uncs say that so it will subconsciously age your character).

People don’t talk in scripts

Similar to the first point, sometimes people do speak in ways that seem somewhat written or robotic. In the fourth panel, we inform a flight attendant about our luggage, and she responds in a hospitable, if a bit blank, fashion. It may seem like she’s following a script of customer service, but that’s because she’s been trained to do that. Training hospitality employees in speech for common scenarios is a standard practice in numerous industries. People are often specifically trained or learn how to respond to specific events. Everyday speech isn’t always prepared, but some people do prepare for arguments, events, or plans. If a character demonstrates this ability, it paints them as mature or experienced. Conversely, an inability to respond in such a professionally warm manner can help characterize them as new. “Sir, I’m afraid you have cancer.” is a rehearsed phrase to minimize the pain felt by a patient. “Aye bruh, you fuckin’ dying.” does not put people at ease.

TL;DR: People often talk in scripts where a thought-out response is advantageous. Use this appropriately.

One final grand piece of advice. Most times when speaking in real life, no one is trying to be memorably catchy. Zingers arise naturally through intelligent conversation and reflection, not trying too hard. That's about it for now. Leave your thoughts in the comments or myths you'd like to dispel.

I've been working on a setting for my D&D campaigns, though I'd also like to keep the option open for other projects in the future—fiction, video games, who knows.

Like many people here, I enjoy worldbuilding for its own sake. I can spend hours working on cultures, languages, ecosystems, and fictional species. Then I discovered Worldbuilding Pasta, Artifexian, and eventually climate simulation tools.

That led me down a rabbit hole.

I spent weeks refining continents, mountain ranges, winds, ocean currents, and climate zones. The more I learned, the more inaccuracies I found in my earlier work.

Recently I started comparing some of my maps against climate simulation tools and noticed that several regions don't behave the way I originally expected. Areas I assumed would become deserts might actually have a fairly mild Mediterranean climate.

And that made me realize something:

Every improvement reveals ten new things that could be improved.

At some point I stopped asking "Is this world believable?" and started asking "Will this ever be finished?"

For those of you who build worlds for games, campaigns, stories, or other creative projects:

• How do you decide that a part of your world is detailed enough?
• What do you absolutely want to figure out before players or readers experience the world?
• What are you comfortable leaving vague until later?
• And how do you feel about retcons?

For example, would you be comfortable changing something major like regional climate, geography, history, or culture after people have already interacted with that part of the world?

Where do you personally draw the line between improving a world and endlessly refining it?

PS Here are some maps from my project.

Context and Introduction

Beast Fables: A worldbuilding project featuring a world where everyone on land is some form of werebeast, alongside merfolk who live beneath the waves and beneath the notice of landlubbers, and the myriad of beasts and creatures that live among them. Said beasts, who share the Gift of Transformation like humans/werefolk do, turn into combination creatures known as chimera.

My interpretation on a classic staple of fantasy creature, the Ogre!

In Urvara the world Beast Fables takes place in, the Ogre isn't a single creature, it is instead a catch-all term for any big, strong chimera that had has a nasty pair of tusks, nastier tempers, and can tear a person in two with powerful arms.

At least two, the Cave and Southern Ogres, are associated with attacks on werefolk, up o and including eating them, with Cave Ogres actively hunting werefolk quite often. Meanwhile, the Ambrosian Ogre is simply good at tearing werefolk in two just to be on the safe side whenever it feels threatened.

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Grottebeast AKA The Cave Ogre: The classical Ogre from which all other similar chimeric morphs are named after, derived from various species of bear. The one presented here is derived from a brown/grizzly bear.

Famously aggressive, bears that transform into ogres are known to regularly hunt people, pursuing them for hours or even a full day without stopping.

The quills on its back are to dissuade ambushes from other powerful chimera and dire beasts, meaning that in order to slay an ogre, one has to fight it face-to-face.

Robos: The ogre morph derived from hippos, and by FAR the most territorial of the three ogre morphs in Urvara.

Responsible for many a human casualty in wartime (and peace time for that manner), and even with the advent of gunpowder, these ogres are notoriously hard to put down when angered.

Battles between roboses and other chimeras and dire beasts are legendary.

Kedhara: The final type of ogre morph, derived from ground sloths. The one most likely to be green, and will very much prefer that you leave its swamp!

It is the most defensive oriented of the three ogre types, and the least aggressive, if only because it's not willing to chase if you make it mad. It is still an INCREDIBLY dangerous opponent.

Kedharas derived from the largest species of ground sloth like Eremotherium are also the largest ogres of them all.

Note: You might be wondering why I didn't use the Mapinguari. Well, for one, it may be a cryptid, but before that it was and still is a creature of folklore and legend, much like Mokele Mbembe. Meaning that if I ever use a Mapinguari, I want to give it proper gravitas.

Meanwhile the name Kedhara is derived from Kida Harara, the Karitiana word for "Laughing Beast", and a synonym of the more famous name.

This is a marker drawing of a Khumetian crocodile warrior from my ancient-era fantasy world. He would be one example representing a phenomenon in this world called therianthropy, wherein a human being becomes part animal through an expensive magical rite that must be performed at night during a full moon.

In Khumetian culture, warriors who become crocodile therianthropes traditionally pledge their service to the crocodile god Sebek and make their living both as guards for the god's temples as well as amphibious special forces in the Khumetian army. They are vicious, powerful fighters and excellent swimmers, but as part of their transformation, they lose their ability to speak human language and assume an ectothermic metabolism that makes them lethargic in colder weather.

This is a map I created in CAD for a region called The Green Valley. It sits inside a natural Enzo circle formed around the Twin Hills, which makes it one of the last peaceful places after the STEMs overthrew the humans with Code X.

To the west are The Lands of BOT territories.
To the east, across a fractured flatland called The Big Gap, live the WIDGETs.
And to the south is The Lands of Magnetic, where the humans were exiled after the uprising.

The rivers and creeks act as lifelines, and the old Fort Ross in the north marks the entrance to the Northern Territory — the last remnants of TECH.

This is all part of a sci‑fi world I’m building, and I’m curious how the geography reads to others. Does this kind of territorial layout feel like a plausible refuge in a fractured future?

Big news everyone! Yesterday I got Blender and started making a 3D model of one of the starships from my scifi story “Defrost the Galaxy”. Here’s my progress as of when I went to bed last night after several hours of practice.

Meet TSSC Demeter (CGH-001), the first Demeter-class interplanetary patrol cruiser in the Tuonela State Security Force. This is one of the ships that gets the plot started, as it is the command ship during the capture of Agenorian Commonwealth science vessel Fiammetta Wilson. Its two known sisters are TSSC Pallada (CGH-002) and TSSC Venera (CGH-003). 

It was commissioned about ten years ago and modified over time. The ship is currently commanded by Colonel (First Class) Hilda Weiss and doubles as the flagship of General (Third Class) Enyo Harfang and the Ophion Brigade. Its home port is the icy garrison moon Naxos, which orbits the outermost gas giant planet Ophion. 

TSSC Demeter is still “under construction” but so far I’ve defined the basic hull shape (loosely inspired by zeppelins and submarines) and added about half the weapons. It already has 8 guided missile launchers installed, as well as most of the twin-gun main laser turrets and about half of the single-gun point-defense laser turrets. The next steps are to add the engines and remaining weapons, detail the hangar, add some airlocks/radiators/greeblies, and start decorating the ship. 

The Demeter is about 200 meters long, with a crew of 300 and range of one month in standard operating mode. The hyperdrive is rated for 10 lightspeed equivalents. The Demeter also carries 8 sublight shuttles, as it is too large and heavy to land on or take off from a planet with terrestrial gravity.

I decided to try building the ship myself in Blender rather than telling AI to build one for me. Let me know what you think of the ship, and any tips for making models in Blender.

The Ryūjin are a draconic offshoot of humanity whose origins are not natural evolution but are from an ancient transformation ritual. Long ago, a secluded coastal village worshipped ancient dragons, believing them to be divine beings that descended from the heavens to calm the oceans and bring harmony to the world. Through forgotten ceremonies and powerful spiritual magic, these humans gradually altered themselves to resemble the beings they revered. Generation after generation, their descendants became something entirely new.

The Ryūjin possess bodies that blend human anatomy with draconic adaptations. Their physiques are lean and athletic, built equally for graceful movement on land and beneath the waves. Their skin is smooth yet remarkably resilient, strengthened by countless iridescent scales that emerge across the shoulders, spine, forearms, hips, and legs. These scales resemble polished gemstones or the shimmering skin of tropical fish, growing denser and more vibrant as a Ryūjin matures. Elder Ryūjin often possess elaborate scale patterns unique enough to identify family lineages.

Ryūjin are renowned for their striking beauty and perhaps their most distinctive features are the coral-like horns that rise from their brows and the finned crests that replace conventional ears. The horns are living sensory organs capable of detecting fluctuations in mana, changes in temperature, spiritual presences, and disturbances within the surrounding environment. They continue growing throughout life, becoming increasingly intricate and branching much like coral or antlers. Their finned ear crests similarly serve more than an aesthetic purpose, allowing Ryūjin to perceive subtle vibrations through both water and air with extraordinary precision.

Fearing that their increasingly draconic appearances would cause them to be mistaken for monsters by the expanding kingdom of Hajime, the Ryūjin abandoned their ancestral village centuries ago and founded the hidden underwater kingdom of Ryūga. Within magnificent coral palaces and submerged temples, they preserved their traditions while remaining largely unknown to the surface world. This isolation endured for generations until the appearance of a monstrous sea beast threatened both ocean and land alike. Forced to reveal themselves, the Ryūjin fought alongside humanity to defeat the creature, forging a lasting alliance that transformed centuries of secrecy into mutual respect. Ironically, all of their draconic features combined with their graceful movements and calm demeanor, have led many surface dwellers to mistake the Ryūjin for divine beings rather than the monsters they feared they would be seen as.

Ryūjin possess several remarkable biological adaptations inherited from their draconic ancestry but Most extraordinary is their innate gift of transformation. Every Ryūjin possesses two natural metamorphic forms. The first is the Dragon Carp form, in which they transform into a magnificent fish resembling a large koi adorned with shimmering scales and flowing fins. This form is primarily used for travel. The second is their Half-Dragon form, an awakened state in which draconic features become far more pronounced. Horns enlarge, claws sharpen, scales spread across the body, and draconic power begins to surface. Though immensely powerful, this transformation requires discipline and control lest instinct overwhelm reason.

So! These are my race of Dragonfolk that are inspired by the dragon people from japanese myth. I debated if I wanted them to be just dragonborn-like or more akin to the Aura from FF14. I ended up going with the second option and giving them a transformation into a dragon form (I promise I'll draw the form in the future! But this is my third pass at these guys this week :’D) they are inspired by the folklore of eastern dragons. The mythological Ryūgū-jō and the folk tale of a carp leaping a waterfall to become a dragon. I do think there can definitely be some cooler looking variants with more jagged scales but I think I'll save that for characters. These guys are good for a baseline. So what do you think?

If you like the art and want to see more then you should check out my other arts on Blue Sky. ALSO i have been working on an archive of sorts for the project over on WorldAnvil (best i've found for what i want) so if you want to check out more in depth lore than what's here or see articles on things that aren't posted here then you should check it out. Maybe leave a follow on one of the 2. I work very hard on these things :’D

Blue Sky.

World Anvil

The Creeproot is a rapidly spreading forest of dead trees and brush. The wildlife is nothing more than bones and rot that still move like puppets on strings. And they leave often to reek havoc on the world around.

Deep within this forest live the Fae. Bee-like creatures that instead of spreading pollen, spread the spores of strange mushrooms to feed on the decay of the forest. These mushrooms forming a mycelium network that constructs a complex structure known only as the greater mind. It is this bizarre entity that keeps the dead forest stuck in a permanent state of undeath. Forcing it to function with psychic energy.

The Fae consume the mushrooms as sustenance, but leave the greater mind in tact as it gives them telepathic abilities they use to survive. They also control, to some extent, how the forest will grow by positioning mushrooms in the forest.

As Fae do not have the ability to communicate verbally, they rely on telepathic symbols that can instantly communicate an idea. However, context such as personal biases will affect how one understands these symbols.

For example, if one sees the symbol that describes the Fae and that individual has a fear of the Fae, a subconscious fear will enter the mind just from looking upon the symbol. Of course, if the individual is reading Fae glyphs to begin with, they are probably interacting with their fear to begin with as Fae cannot travel far from their glyphs without them fading.

SLOTS ARE FULL! I will still be reading submissions, maybe even drawing them for a "second round" later down the line. But right now all slots are full.

I'll draw any of your world's organisms for the price of nothin'. I've been meaning to do something like this for a while, but it wasn't until KARYA gave this a shot that I finally got the courage to try this out myself. I do this because I've been feeling burnt-out somewhat with my own project, so I figure that in the meantime while I take a break, I'll exercise my artistic muscles by drawing for other people. I've listed some of my own stuff above to give you an idea of my skill level.

I'll do 3 minimum, 1 per person, depending on how I'm feeling past that I may still do more. Maybe a some rough sketches past that point, so even if all 3 submissions are full, make sure to submit your animals anyway. They'll be 2360px by 2360px, unless otherwise requested. Expect about 2-3 days wait. Each drawing will be done in the style of the above picture, the first one. I should clarify, "creature" here means literally anything that moves around, it could be golem people and I'll still draw it, so don't skip out because your creatures are inorganic or made from mushrooms. Races are also included in this definition.

Make sure to be in depth, colouration, proportions, if it's a weird shape that's hard to describe tell me about similarly proportioned animals. Don't forget smaller things like teeth, eyes, fur texture etc, give me something to bite on. I'll need details.

This should still abide by the sub's rules, specifically rule 3, as this is technically a contribution to other's work. Hope I haven't done anything wrong there (Sorry mods if I have). Anyway, can't wait to see what you guys have to offer!

Herd grazer native to Tanedeva. A country in the western region of a continent where the day-night cycle takes a year.

They grow to about 3 meters in length (10 feet) and lay massive eggs. They make a high rolling r sound to communicate.

In the day, it gets to about 50-60 degrees Celsius (131 farenheit) in Tanedeva though there is rainfall about every earth week. These creatures keep themselves cool with their "wings".

They transfer the heat from their backs (where big veins are) to the feathers with magic, cooling their blood. The feathers have nerves running through them (My magic system is tied to concience/the brain/information so it helps to have nerves where the magic is happening (nerves transport information)). The feathers are sensitive for obvious reasons.

There is an almost constant wind in Tanedeva so the Mahl position themselves with their wings flat against the wind, cooling them and in turn, cooling their bodies. Their wingfeathers have a concave shape to catch the wind.

Only the concave side of the feathers give off heat to maximize efficiency. This, coincidentally, makes them also very useful for keeping warm. The Mahl can let the wings down so the concave sides face their bodies and keep warm.

When it becomes night, the Mahl migrate to a tiny peninsula poking out of the spell that makes the days and nights long. The strong winds still carry the cold from Tanedeva but it is bearable for there. They mostly sleep on the fields at night, surviving on the fat they built up during the day, the limited grass on the peninsula, and the water from the beaches.

They also mate and lay eggs at the start of the night, incubating them while hibernating. The young hatch in time for the herd to start migrating again.

Utility of the feathers

When an object has had a spell used on it (or through it in this situation) it remembers the spell, meaning humans can use them.

The feathers are harvested with the nerve endings. The nerve endings are then woven into clothing with the concave side of the feathers facing outward, keeping the fabric cool during field work or anytime a person is wearing it outside. It is not very effective inside because there is no wind inside.

At night, these can be flipped inside out and worn over several layers of clothing. The concave side facing inward doesn't let any warmth escape.

One could also engineer a water cooling container or make a fan that can be used to warm oneself.

Clothing of these feathers has to be exposed to wind often or it will "forget" its magic and become useless.