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  1. - Top - End - #211
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    Default Re: Worldbuilding Talk Thread

    Yeah, I think defining what a given culture values will determine what gods they worship. Also, there may be vastly more gods than the ones you name or list that simply are minor or local.

    For example, I have dwarves who used to worship a pantheon of gods of natural things and they are more precisely minded, so instead of a god of earth, they have a god of marble, a god of iron, a god of gold, a god of limestone, etc. But they see these gods as obsolete because what is vastly more important is what can be done with those natural elements. So, more prominent are saints, legendary dwarves who have actually applied turned these elements into technology, and these saints are idols to be emulated but not worship, since prayer is a waste of time when you could be working. So you have the woman who created the first aqueduct system for the dwarves now considered the saint of aqueducts, who inspires those who oversee or engineer distribution of resources, and the saint of the arch, who inspires those who seek to shape elements to have far greater strength than they do in nature.

    On the other hand, the eladrin (4e) rotate between four royal courts, each ruling for a season, so they think in terms of long cycles and believe in social order. Their gods are the constellations, who take turns being the sovereign of all heavens by sitting on the moon-throne. So, there is no moon god, per se, but rather, a constellation god who is ruling over a certain era from the moon (and is thus absent from the sky in that you can't see its constellation).

  2. - Top - End - #212
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    Default Re: Worldbuilding Talk Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by QED - Iltazyara View Post
    Good thread is slowly falling down the page! No!

    On a reasonable note, I do actually have something to post.

    Recently I've been going over my pantheons, the greater world one and the regional one I'm focusing on. In doing so I've realised something, I have no sodding clue what gods are expected by people beyond the most obvious ones. Those being God of Magic, Death, War and Cheese (Note to self, need a god of cheese).

    I'd like to know what everyone here thinks are the important gods, and what ones are more superfluous and secondary.

    I should probably stop using indirect questions. What type of gods do you think are the important ones? Racial gods, elemental gods, conceptual gods or otherwise.
    If anything, I think there's a little too much emphasis on having gods "of" something. Many real-world religious pantheons don't neatly divide their membership into clearly-defined roles, and the ones that do often blur those divisions repeatedly in the legends about those gods. For example, in Norse mythology, earthquakes are caused by the tortured thrashing of Loki, a god who is otherwise not associated with the earth or with strength. In Greek mythology, they're caused by Poseidon, who is generally considered the sea god, perhaps because of their association with tsunamis.

    Personally, I'd recommend making whatever 4-12 gods you think fit the setting best, and if you need more associations, find ways to have those gods cover them. A God associated with the sky and/or weather could be worshiped by sailors and farmers, but a legend or two could easily add something else to that, perhaps making him the patron of brewers or cartographers, or maybe he causes volcanoes erupt when he tries to steal clouds from the earth. If the people practice sky burials, then a Goddess of Death might also be associated with birds, and carrion birds probably wouldn't have negative associations.
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  3. - Top - End - #213
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    Default Re: Worldbuilding Talk Thread

    I do believe my question was misinterpreted, I have, well and truly, got the gods that fit the region. That is hardly an issue, I was more asking "What do people think are the important gods to have for players?"

    I have gods that wouldn't work elsewhere in my world due to culture, hell one of them is a god of the really freaking long river I have! Doesn't cross over to other places much.

    But I have no god of healing, no god of the sun, no 'dedicated' god of magic or war. So in terms of pantheons, I am missing Apollo and Ares, but have someone like Poseidon and even as far down the chain as the Oracle of Delphi.

    My most peculiar gods are probably my Twin Goddesses, who are the ones for sibling bonds, platonic love, freedom and the breaking of the norm to expand one's horizons. My gods don't just do one thing.

    But at the same time, I'm wondering if I'm missing something important.
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  4. - Top - End - #214
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    Default Re: Worldbuilding Talk Thread

    I'm going to second Everyl and suggest you don't try and neatly divide your Gods into "Gods of X" and "Gods of Y."

    Think of your pantheon more as a crazy extended family who happen to have cosmic power.

    edit: Darn. Ninja'd
    Last edited by Vitruviansquid; 2013-12-13 at 07:50 PM.
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  5. - Top - End - #215
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    Default Re: Worldbuilding Talk Thread

    The important gods for players are whatever gods are important for the setting. I wouldn't add a god of war to a setting just to let players have the option of following a god of healing. If anything, I might ask myself what gods that already fit into the setting could be seen in that way by at least some of their followers. You might not have a god of healing, but there might be an order of priests who are renowned for their healing prowess who follow a god who is, himself, perhaps only distantly interested in healing. Almost any god who is associated with a specific nationality or ethnic group can serve as a god of war when that group is in conflict with outsiders.

    In short, I don't think there is a list of divine roles that need to be filled for the players' sake. If a player wants to play a cleric of a variety of god that didn't find a role in your setting on its own, then existing gods can probably be used to accommodate that player.
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  6. - Top - End - #216
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    Default Re: Worldbuilding Talk Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by QED - Iltazyara View Post
    I should probably stop using indirect questions. What type of gods do you think are the important ones? Racial gods, elemental gods, conceptual gods or otherwise.
    My setting is very much animistic, so the primary "Greater Gods" are Sun, Moon, Earth, Ocean, Sky, and Darkness. All the other deities are mostly local spirits of the land who primarily demand respect by the local people and symbolic offerings in return for keeping the land healthy and allowing the people to live there.
    A few of the minor gods are very popular and worshipped over extremely large areas, like the Demigod of Hunting, the God of the Major Forest, the Demigoddess of Twilight, Deception, and Secrecy; and the Snake God of Rulership, Treachery, and Intrigue.
    Finally, there are also some of the Great Ancients, the most powerful of the abominations of the underworld. Known at the surface are the Lord of Ancient Knowledge (Dagon), the Mother of Monsters (Shub-Niggurath), the Lord of Violence and Transformation (Tharizdun, Juiblex, Ghaunadaur), and the Mistress of Madness (Pale Night). The Goddess of Darkness and the Demigoddes of Twilight and Deception are actually also Great Ancients, but they have still a great importance in the present world so they became gods rather than having to retreat into the underworld.

    The Spirits of the Land are served like they are the supreme rulers of the land, but there isn't usually a lot of spiritual devotion to them. The people know they would die if the spirit no longer wants them to live on its land, but that's not too different to being banished from the clan by the chief.
    The Gods are much more distant and they are treated more like manifestations of philosophical concepts. Even the priests can't ask questions from the gods and get any kind of reply. The gods are simply there, more or less eternal, and mortal worshippers try to gain some understanding of their nature and attempt to emulate it as much as they can, to be in harmony with the universe.
    The Faith of the Sun is a cult devoted to strength, dedication, clear minds, and reliability. These are the primary virtues for the faithful, which they believe are embodied by the Sun, which is their most shining example. The Faith of Darkness is devoted to silence, solitude, and questioning your perception and believes. There are priests who base their training of magic on these principles and virtues, but in some ways it could be said that the Gods don't actually exist. They are more concepts than beings.
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  7. - Top - End - #217
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    Default Re: Worldbuilding Talk Thread

    If you're asking what kinds of gods players normally need, think of what kind of clerics your players normally play. Most clerics in D&D are normally quite martial, so worshipping deities of valour, war, protection, slaughter or similar concepts makes sense, since in a pantheon, those would probably be the most warlike. That said, many gods could have clergy like that. Perhaps a god of trade has an order of clerical caravan guards.

    If you don't play the average dungeon campaign, as I suspect many here do, your options expand. Add gods that fit the campaign. In a court intrigue campaign, there will be gods of trickery, art, poetry, kingship and other such civilized concepts. In a seafaring campaign, gods of travel, storm and waves, or luck to pray to for protection against the ocean. And so on.
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    Default Re: Worldbuilding Talk Thread

    It also works the other way round. The available choice of common deities will influence what kind of clerics you will get both as PCs and NPCs. With gods like Bane, Helm, and Tempus, there surely will be lots of warpriests. But if all the gods are more like Chauntea, Oghma, and Mystra, the definition of what is a common cleric will change quite a lot.
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    Default Re: Worldbuilding Talk Thread

    I was thinking more of common player clerics, though. And I'd suspect that 99% of them will have to swing weapons at some point in their career.
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    Default Re: Worldbuilding Talk Thread

    This was somewhat the issue I was having, no god of war, battle or even something close. Well, aside from a xenophobic god, but he's nasty and rules out all non-humans as worshipers by default.

    I've ended up tying a goddess of Dawn into being the champion of holy light, and crusades against darkness. This'll cover the 'sword happy holy clerics' while having secondary purposes as well.
    I am going to ignore a god of healing however, probably have healers worship the god of knowledge instead.

    And the idea of "having different gods will change the common cleric" assumes one basic thing; the players actually pay attention. I don't truly have that, "random Jesus" being the latest god in a series of many erased ones on the ranger's character sheet.
    NPCs are defined by the world, players will refute being defined by the world unless it was their idea in the first place. In my experience at least.
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  11. - Top - End - #221
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    Default Re: Worldbuilding Talk Thread

    Working on my next campaign, I noticed that there seems to be a strong tendency for settings with a more grim tone to be very low on outright fantastic elements. There are always monsters, but those monsters tend to fall into the category of fictional large animals most of the time. Giving the flying monitor lizard a fire breath doesn't really change that much.
    Those settings that do go to quite some length to include impossibly fantastic elements somehow strike me as having a more light hearted feel. Not saying that Planescape and Eberron are not awesome, but I feel like their greatness comes from being rediculously over the top awesome. Among the D&D settings, Dark Sun and Ravenloft could be considered more grim than others, but Ravenloft plays it safe with established classic creatures and archetypes, and Dark Sun doesn't have many strikingly magical elements either. There are the sorcerer kings and psionics are common, but overall it's pretty basic bronze age fantasy with weird looking animals.

    Working on my setting, I've been taking a lot of inspiration from Conan, Dragon Age, and the Witcher, but these are all playing it safe and conventional (excuse to Conan for establishing many of those conventions) and so I feel I am drifting towards a pretty generic world in the end. Dark Sun at least has the desert wasteland theme, which makes it stand out clearly from other worlds.

    I don't really have a point to make yet, just this observation. Any thoughts you have about this subject?
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    Default Re: Worldbuilding Talk Thread

    Well, there's the always-popular Lovecraftian settings. With space travel, psionics and tentacle monsters from alternate dimensions. Also, parasitic colours, if you take the wilder tales.
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  13. - Top - End - #223
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    Low magic fantasy = grim world is something I've noticed as well, although I am trying to subvert somewhat.

    Not in a happy low-magic land, gods no. (Gods saying no is completely accurate here.)

    But as a higher fantasy with the grim elements in it, magic gone rather badly wrong. Eberron did have this; the Mournland. But it wasn't a focus, more of an prior event than anything else.

    High fantasy leads towards more over-the-top nice places for a few reasons I think, the first of which is quite easy to describe to people from this forum.
    The Tippyversse.

    Then you get problems in the other direction, if magic is that strong why hasn't anyone broken the world yet?
    Which, I suppose could be said to lead to things like Dark Sun.

    Lycanthropy is one of the low fantasy grim pieces, but it somewhat falls of in high fantasy due to magical cures and the like.
    I somewhat work on that vein in my world to end up with a sub-breed of angels/demons being formed solely from mortals overdosed with holy/unholy energies.

    Then dragonborn being people kiddnapped and made to serve dragons... etc, my world isn't particularly forgiving. But it is most definitely high fantasy. Gods walk the land, heroes champion the gods and perform great deeds, dungeons lie buried under countless generations of buildings. And so on.
    But safety away from civilised defences? Not happening.
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  14. - Top - End - #224
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    I'm trying to reconcile space operas with dark fantasy. Which surprisingly ties with the idea of attempting to not play it "safe" anymore. Ideas an advice would be appreciated, but as is I have the following main ideas:

    - Mix the awe and sense of wonder common to space operas with the grim and fatalistic view of a lovecraftian wild world.
    - Have two common enemies, the environment itself and the other tribes/cultures. The world changes really fast and adapting is difficult.
    - Throw the unexplored into the mix, only a relatively small area is charted. Exploration is necessary.

    Also if you want a higher magic darker place take cyre, just before it was obliterated in the mournland and patch it into the realm of dread (i.e. ravenloft) the things that the Cyrans were doing during the war were pretty terrifying. That is how the campaign world in which I normally play with my friends started.
    Last edited by thethird; 2013-12-15 at 03:25 PM.
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    Default Re: Worldbuilding Talk Thread

    Wild West style Horror-fantasy game following the 'Age of Worms' adventure path. I'm retconning parts of the story arc to include tasteful elements of time travel. Fairly well rounded story world, but still lots of conceptual space. Anything to include that's really a must? Suggestions.

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    So as I toy with my campaign world, I've considered rewriting some major lore to it. Mainly the "Genesis," story or at least the origin of how the characters and their respective races came to be were they are.

    The idea being the campaign world is actually one that is fairly recent. Most of the races being colonists from other worlds lost in a great war across the planes and stars that has only just recently concluded. The magi of these races found a world far from the conflicts and its problems and have begun establishing themselves upon this new world. The last of the greatest of these Mages using powerful magic to shape the world into the more hospitable place it is today.

    Originally everything happened on one dying world that was terraformed back to life but I almost like the idea of colonizing and setting root on a newer world. Plausibly with the ruins of alien like beings or having to face the remnants of the ancient war in the stars.

  17. - Top - End - #227
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    The one really important thing when adressing the creation story of worlds and races is "what would change if the world and races just evolved naturally?". There was a time when it was really fashionable to have worlds inhabited by magic using barbarians, but saying it's the Earth of the distant future. But everything would be identical if the setting is just a very early stage of that planet, than this fact becomes nothing more than a gimick that simply clutters things up.
    At a more basic level, all backstory must be directly relevant for players in the present, or you shouldn't really bother with it. Star Trek coined the term technobabble, and lots of fantasy settings suffer from bad cases of historybabble. When a detail has no apparent relevance to the situation and descisions of the PCs, the players might as well hear "blabla history blabla something about ancestors". It's more padding than actual content.

    If you are going to bother with writing these things and telling players about them, then they need to have a relevance to the current game and the PCs in it.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    The one really important thing when adressing the creation story of worlds and races is "what would change if the world and races just evolved naturally?". There was a time when it was really fashionable to have worlds inhabited by magic using barbarians, but saying it's the Earth of the distant future. But everything would be identical if the setting is just a very early stage of that planet, than this fact becomes nothing more than a gimick that simply clutters things up.
    At a more basic level, all backstory must be directly relevant for players in the present, or you shouldn't really bother with it. Star Trek coined the term technobabble, and lots of fantasy settings suffer from bad cases of historybabble. When a detail has no apparent relevance to the situation and descisions of the PCs, the players might as well hear "blabla history blabla something about ancestors". It's more padding than actual content.

    If you are going to bother with writing these things and telling players about them, then they need to have a relevance to the current game and the PCs in it.
    I guess personally an origin story is necessary to justify multiple races living in close proximity (The same world) to one another. "How did they get here?" the idea being if all or at least most are colonists, then it would give grounds for conflict, exploration, ect.

    Plus a large background conflict would in my mind give rise to current conflicts. The old wars are not really over. Lurking in the deep dark void are the echos of the past waiting to be renewed again kinda thing.

  19. - Top - End - #229
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    Here's something to think and talk about: What kinds of groups, organizations, and factions have you created for your settings? Creating a landscape and its creature is all nice and well, but in the end it's the power groups that PCs will interact with and be affected by the most.
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    Quote Originally Posted by QED - Iltazyara View Post
    I should probably stop using indirect questions. What type of gods do you think are the important ones? Racial gods, elemental gods, conceptual gods or otherwise.
    No gods are important as setting facts. You don't need factual gods at all for either religion, magic or other reasons.

    I would instead phrase the question this way: "what kinds of things do people usually worship?" For humans, the answer to this question is: gods who have access to strategic social information. Strategic social information, if you're unfamiliar with the concept, basically means "who did what?" The most important gods, saints or whatever are always those who can tell you most about other people. The second most important gods are those who have access to the same sort of information of things that are relevant for survival and health - prey animals, weather, etc. Quite often, prey animals are venerated as gods.

    Gods who are not interested in human endeavors usually fall to the wayside, even when they are supposedly omnipotent. To a normal human, beings like Lovecraftian gods (distant beings with awesome power but no interest in humans) are irrelevant. They are uninteresting - they inspire neither fear or love, and thus are not worshipped. When faceless forces of nature are worshipped, they are always antropomorphized first. They are always given human interests, emotions and personalities.

    For more information, I suggest reading Pascal Boyer's Religion explained.

    Now, when it comes to non-humans, the question becomes: what intuitions and instincts do those non-humans have? What is important to them? For example, in my setting, crows and many other scavengers and predators worship the Mors (gods of death) purely as a form of barter: they gather souls of the dead to Mors, and get limited immortality in returned. The Mors themselves worship the Queen of the Sky via mimicking human habits and rituals, but only for her amusement. They expect, and get, nothing in return. The Mors are not concerned with society or seeking knowledge, and that shows in their, uh, "lives". They do not usually even have bodies, and don't interact socially with one another with even remotely human frequency or way. In fact, now that I think of it, I can't even say they think of their sole target of worship as important. They worship her, because she's there. In fact, it may be just to mock humans.

    While I've toyed with the idea a lot lately, I have not implemented other examples, and can't really think of good examples from media at large. But here's something to consider: religious thoughts are largely tied to intuition. Intuition in D&D is largely tied to Wisdom. As such, species with higher Wisdom would tend to be more religious.

    Superstition is also related to intuition, but usually those cases where intuition has gaps and gives incorrect information on one's surroundings. As such, a case could be made for superstition to be caused by low Wisdom. One common form of superstitiousness is anthropomorphization of things that aren't human; attributing human personality and motives to non-human operatives. We can replace "human" with name of another species to approximate the effects.

    Meanwhile, analytical thinking decreases superstition and (to a degree) religiousness. As such, species with higher intelligence would tend to be less superstitiuos and religious. Analytical thinking also contributes to abstract thinking, so we'd expect highly intelligent people to be more versed in high-level, abstract concepts.

    But there's more: religions can be divided roughly into two categories: natural religions, and book religions. The former tend to emphasize personal experience and mysticism that are not transferable, while the latter emphasize a codified vision that can be transferred from person to person. As you should've guessed, the dividing line between these more often than not is literacy. In fact, book religions tend to directly cause and speed up the formation and codification of written language. In D&D, literacy is tied to Intelligence; a just assignment, as literacy is perhaps the biggest singular factor in developing abstract thinking, also associated with Int in D&D.

    Based on this, we can give rough generalizations of how religious different species would be in comparison to humans (baseline WIS and INT 10), and in what ways. Consequently, we can estimate what sorts of gods they might value:

    Lower WIS, same INT: Less religious, but more superstitious. Gods have little importance, but things like astrological signs are held as important. People use rituals to influence abstract entities, such as chance: think of real world "magic". People will usually not think of such arcane rituals as religious, even if in essence, they are.
    Higher WIS, same INT: More religious, but less superstitious. Gods are held as very important and tend to be heavily personalised to mimic the species. Gods are probably thought to be distant, and affecting the world much like mortals, explaining why they don't routinely interfere with the world (remember, WIS influences senses.) On the other hand, "magical" practices like in the prior entry are scoffed at; why would anyone waste effort to appeal to things that aren't there?
    Same WIS, lower INT: About as religious, but religion tends towards natural rather than book religions, with heavy dose of superstition and ritualism. This would probably appear as what we think of "primitive" religions to be like; shamans dancing around a bonfire, people forecasting the weather from chicken bones etc.
    Same WIS, higher INT: About as religious, but heavily leaning towards book religions. Considerably less superstitious. Gods will likely be thought to be abstract entities, with hard-to-quantify effects on the world. Idea of gods being similar to the species are probably scoffed at. "Magical" practices are approached from a scientific viewpoint: do they have a chance of working? If not, they are likely abandoned (and scoffed at). If inconclusive, they may remain as a matter of habit. If they work, you can see increase in popularity.
    Lower WIS, lower INT: Areligious but superstitious. Gods are not given a thought, but various "magical" practices abound. What religion there is, is very much the natural sort. Book religions are virtually non-existent.
    Higher WIS, higher INT: More religious, but extremely non-superstitions. Theology will likely be highly complex, and possibly tied to academic or scientific advancement. If gods factually exist in a setting, these guys will be the most likely to find that out and tailor their practices to match the real, verifiable traits of those gods. If not, these guys are still likely to be religious, but instead of gods (which are likely dismissed) they will focuse on leading a moral life or venerating abstract ideals. On the other hand, "magical" practices with no verifiable basis will be basically non-existant.

    We can also add Charisma as a third factor. In D&D, Charisma governs social behaviours, artistic endeavors and rituals. Human religious practices tend to heavily mirror our social interactions, so it stands to a point this would reflect in religious tastes of other creatures:

    Lower Cha: religion is unlikely to involve mass gatherings, and more likely to be a private matter. If gods are of import, they are worshipped minimally or simplistically. Prayers are short and to the point, elaborate rituals don't exist and there won't be extensive religious poetry or music. Instead, worship will focus on concrete offerings: building fancy temples, animal sacrifices etc.. Basically, if you think of interaction with gods as social interaction between people (and you should), these are the guys who, when going to the convenience store, quickly pay the clerk and never stop to chat pointlessly. Consequently, gods with social functions are of less import, while gods of invidual efforts are more so. Gods are worshipped less for caring, and more for hoping they will stay out of the way. (Think of a socially awkward person dealing with his/her boss at work.)
    Higher Cha: religion is even more of a social endeavor than it is to us. Religion is very much a public thing and proselytizing is normal. Religious song, dance and poetry are common, and if gods are held as important, it is common for people to believe they can use words to sway them to their side. Gods in possession of strategic social information become even more; meanwhile gods with no such information are probably laughed at. Think of people who fast-talk the shop clerk to give them a discount, or look down their nose on their socially less apt boss.


    Quote Originally Posted by QED - Iltazyara View Post
    High fantasy leads towards more over-the-top nice places for a few reasons I think, the first of which is quite easy to describe to people from this forum.
    The Tippyversse.

    Then you get problems in the other direction, if magic is that strong why hasn't anyone broken the world yet?
    Which, I suppose could be said to lead to things like Dark Sun.
    Over-the-top niceness is something of a misconception. In Tippyverse, the big utopian (or dystopian) cities only form due to military concerns, namely, inability to defend large territories of land, combined with ability to produce a lot of goods in a tiny area. As a result, any land that is not the cities is unprotected, uncivilized and unhospitable; all capable people basically migrate to the cities, leaving only the uncapable people, monsters and wild animals behind.

    It interesting you brought up Dark Sun. Another poster recently realized how big part the Wilds are of the Tippyverse, and remarked Tippyverse is basically Dark Sun, just without all the orginal, interesting fluff.

    Another setting that is basically post-apocalyptic Tippyverse, is Jaconia of the Finnish RPG Praedor. Jaconia is a circular patch of land, 1000 miles across. Around it, is the Wolf's Desert - and beyond the desert, is Borvaria, an immeasurable destroyed city filled with anomalies and monsters. A long time in the past, the world was ruled by Wizards, who through dimensional gates brought endless wealth upon earth. Everyone, from nobles to commoners, enjoyed benefits of an immortality elixir, meaning the population just grew and grew as the older generations never died out.

    But then, the over-use of the gates brough multiple worlds crashing down. Borvaria was devastated, with the inhabitants either dying as foreign laws of nature impacted their world, or becoming nameless monsters as their bodies were fused together or mutated by overlapping entities.

    Jaconia survived, because some wizards had foreseen this disaster, and used a vast magic crystal to create a sanctuary within the chaos. Inside this sanctuary, several great cities were build, where the wizards reigned supreme, trying to retain their former glory. However, since the area of Jaconia was limited, not everyone could be given the immortality elixir. As such, a lower class was formed of the mortal humans, fit only to be servants, slaves and fodder. Things continued this way for ages. However, as time passed, some of the mortal servants escaped their masters, and formed their own tribes and nations in the wild parts of Jaconia. In time, they rose to such power that they began placing demands on the Wizards. Even worse, leader of one of the cities was becoming insane, and several Wizards feared that his experimentations would lead to replication of Borvaria's fate - not in vain, as exactly that soon happened. Because of this, several of the Wizards sided with the mortals, and sought to usurp the remaining Wizard Kings. They eventually succeeded, though with great cost. The last (and most powerful) Wizard King could not endure the loss of station - he thought that if he can't have the world, no-one can. As his city was located in the very center of Jaconia and contained the crystal protecting Jaconia from the ravages of Borvaria, he tried to bring everything down with him. One of the Demon Knights, an anti-magic soldier backed by mortal armies and bening Wizards, managed to slay him, but not before he partially opened a gate to another realms. As a result, his whole city had to be barred, a great wall put up to seal it completely. To this day, the horrible spell waits there, waiting to be finished.

    Naturally, among players of Praedor it is extremely popular to completely disregard both Borvaria and the Wizards and instead focus on lives and cultures of the Jaconian mortals. Amusingly enough, this means that while Praedor has an extremely high-magic setting, in practice it appears to be a gritty, Conan-esque low-magic adventure game. Wizards are banned as player characters and so the best you can get in that regard is an Alchemist - but alchemist derive most of their power from normal science. So while some supernatural elixirs and potions are available for player characters to make, for high-tier Alchemy the game actually suggests creation of firearms, steam engines and air balloons.
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  21. - Top - End - #231
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    That was a wall of text I was not quite expecting.

    I have not had to study read in a while, took a few tries to reset off of skimming. Reading that post in about forty seconds the first time around did not help comprehension much.

    You've put out some very interesting pieces; especially on the correlation of mental attributes to how religion, or just general belief, is structured. It's hard to say how I'm working with my gods; I mean I have a number of them posted on here in my setting thread, but they are... Physical, tangible, concrete and difficult to deny in-world. But at the same time they are not all powerful, nor entirely consistent. Being both created by and from mortals, while evolving past them.

    "what kinds of things do people usually worship?"
    was basically what I was asking, really. Though I didn't got an answer to that variant of my question before.

    I think my point about the Tippyverse-(read as; utopian high-fantasy) very much was that it was a fallacy, that much power lying around means something is going to go wrong. Badly wrong. Which is why I prefer to work with wizards, clerics and other casters rarely getting to level ten, let alone above.

    Edit because I derped and forgot to actually say what I meant.

    And if anyone gets into the high teens there is more pressing business than taking over a continent.

    Generally I'm probably trying to reach for; all this magic is around, but won't go wrong because it already has, and the powerful gods are working to stop and reverse it, while drafting any competent mortal into the fight. Without stopping personal agendas getting in the way and causing conflict.

    Anyway, onto;
    Here's something to think and talk about: What kinds of groups, organizations, and factions have you created for your settings? Creating a landscape and its creature is all nice and well, but in the end it's the power groups that PCs will interact with and be affected by the most.
    I've looked at several organisations, inevitably governments seem to fold into this, along with some religious orders. Order of Holiest Dawn would be the example of a religious order, paladins dedicated to the dawn, bringing light to the darkness and aiding sinners in repenting and rehabilitation. Somewhat cliche; but certainly not a bad thing.

    The Oracles of Seralis, while not really a organisation, would certainly be a power group players work with. Somewhere anyone who makes the trek can ask questions about the future, so long as they shed no blood on the road to the oracle. Basically incredibly out of the way divination and prophecy, a way to give out plothooks if they get stumped.

    The third one I can think of, that might be somewhat unique, is the Silver Wing Messengers, a enclave of angels that serve the God of Roads. They can be called with the right incantation (which changes monthly) at one of his way shrines, to carry a message to any living being whose name you know. Players would interact with them by having to find out the incantation, which isn't even known by the clerics of the God of Roads. Or by the fact that they are hunted down and captured by one of the major regions near their southernmost enclave, because of the xenophobia of that region.
    Being sent on a hunting mission for a "demi-human" only to piss off a small army of angels? 'tis a thought.

    Otherwise governments, kings, queens, theocrats, councilmen, mayors, emperors, elders. Those are what make up the majority of the power groups I have, well, in the southern areas anyway.
    Last edited by QED - Iltazyara; 2014-01-12 at 06:30 PM.
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  22. - Top - End - #232
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    I don't know how far the discussion has come, but I wanted to chime in with some thoughts.

    My homebrew world has 117 different gods. Why? Well, because I didn't figure the humans would worship the same deities as the elves, who wouldn't worship the same as the dwarves, and so on.

    Each pantheon reflects its race in turn: elves have very few gods that control a wide variety of apparently unrelated things each, dwarves have a close-knit family of gods who are responsible for the 2-3 things dwarves actually care about (stone, family, hard work), and humans have almost a god for everything important to them like Catholic saints ("There's a god for that."), gnomes worship an ascended spirit born of a computer program that they can talk to through special teletype/instant messenger things, orcs are patterned after Babylonian gods, and halflings more or less just have "very important halflings" that they revere rather than worship. Figure in a few giant, draconic, goblinoid, and other sundry deities, and you've got over 100 figures who are worshiped across the world.

    It's always bothered me that pantheons somehow cover all races equally. Christianity doesn't feature Allah, nor does Judaism feature Thor, and we're all one race.
    Currently wishing for MMO-style graphics designers to fall into his lap so that his homebrew world can be sent out to the masses.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Vanzanze View Post
    It's always bothered me that pantheons somehow cover all races equally. Christianity doesn't feature Allah, nor does Judaism feature Thor, and we're all one race.
    I think this happens because it becomes significantly hard to refute another groups deities when they are walking around doing miracles in plain sight. Another point comes up when the gods acknowledge other gods, which might cause a religious schism if people disbelieve hard enough.

    I ended up overbudget with my gods (Although how I set myself a budget I don't know), of 36 planned and named gods I have two, and nineteen others detailed and in use.

    Personally, I like the idea that gods have different faces depending on the situation, the same guy who is despised in one place for being patron of necromancers is revered elsewhere for being the guardian of departed spirits. It might seem contradictory, but if it's that god's position that disturbing the tombs of the dead disturbs the spirit, then having the cadavers fight off intruders isn't that farfetched.
    And reincarnation is a thing in my setting, so "The long dead shall guard the newly departed" is one of his proverbs, as the bodies of the 'long dead' don't have a spirit in them that can be disturbed anymore.
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  24. - Top - End - #234
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    Quote Originally Posted by QED - Iltazyara View Post
    You've put out some very interesting pieces; especially on the correlation of mental attributes to how religion, or just general belief, is structured. It's hard to say how I'm working with my gods; I mean I have a number of them posted on here in my setting thread, but they are... Physical, tangible, concrete and difficult to deny in-world. But at the same time they are not all powerful, nor entirely consistent. Being both created by and from mortals, while evolving past them.
    Well, as they are concrete beings, the first question you should ask is: how relatable are they? Just as in the case of national leaders, pretty face + speaking in a way people understand = boom, succesfull god with lot of worshippers.

    You can expect higher INT people to take a more cynical attitude towards them. The higher their INT is in proportion to their WIS, the more likely you'll be hearing phrases like "they're just powerful outsider", "they're not real gods" etc. Low INT & WIS people probably don't care at all. Low Cha people probably just want to be left alone.

    Higher WIS people will be devout worshippers, but will also have more realistic expectations of the gods; they probably won't expect them to "fix everything" or meddle in things below their status. This is where the likeness of gods becomes important. If the gods are human-like, then humans will worship them strongly, even if they are evil; fear is a powerful factor, and let's not forget what awe originally means. Meanwhile, non-humans will be less loving and more wary of human-like gods. It is possible for non-humans to declare human-like gods to be demons/devils, especially if they're of the nasty sort; and vice versa.

    If WIS and INT are proportional and both high, you will probably find folks who view themselves as moral or intellectual equals to the gods; this depends on how intelligent and wise the gods themselves are. If it's possible for mortals to mentally eclipse gods, this attitude will eventually turn into miso- or dysteism: the most mentally gifted people will come to think of gods as irrelevant to their well-being, or perhaps even a bit pitiable.

    As gods are fallible and concrete, you will see high CHA people trying to woo their way to their favor. Think of old myths, where mortals might have tricked gods or stolen something from them.

    As gods are concrete, you will see the distinction between "believing" and "having faith" becoming more distinct. Only stupid or uneducated people will think the gods don't exist; however, whether they trust them to be all they claim to be will vary. If someone "lacks faith", it basically never means they question a god's existence, but it does mean they don't think the god will deliver their promises and probably feel they are thus not worthy of worship.

    One trait I'd say won't be meaningful to most people is the exact origin of gods. How likely is it for them to even know? And even if they do know, does it really help them in their immediate situation? If the answer to one is no, people probably won't pay it much mind. No matter the past, there are extraordinarily powerful do-gooders or do-badders in the neighbourhood now.

    Consistency is a trickier factor. What happens when a god doesn't do its job? The more disastrous the consequences, or the greater the returns, the more people will worship that god to either avoid disaster or to benefit. The harder to perceive a god's influence is, the less popular it will be. But in general: humans at least don't expect other people to be 100% consistent (save for the most naive cases), and will consequently go to lenghts to ensure a person will either keep acting, or make an exception, in their favor. However, they'll also try to jump the fence where it's lowest, so to speak. Ironically, this might mean the most consistent and most bening gods are least worshipped; why bother, the thing will keep doing what it's always done anyway. Again, a workplace comparison is useful. The guy who is loud and makes a show of himself will be loved or hated in much greater amounts than the shy quiet guy who is just doing his job, irrespective of who is actually the more useful worker.
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  25. - Top - End - #235
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    Here's something to think and talk about: What kinds of groups, organizations, and factions have you created for your settings? Creating a landscape and its creature is all nice and well, but in the end it's the power groups that PCs will interact with and be affected by the most.
    One of the biggest is the remnants of a great country. Or at least the most powerful one. One nation, the Union of Ethor, which has since been largely broken but buried among the ruined cities and deep underground in hidden complexes lay the former government carrying on activities, various surviving groups. The Union was decimated during the "The Day Breakers War," when a secret group of Artificers working within the military mistakenly allowed an army of Azaren (A race that did exist on the worlds surface in hiding) who had been living within the worlds Moon. These beings had been afflicted with a bloodlust and madness causing them to be more intently aggressive. And had fallen under their own new god Thoth. The Azaren army that attacked had been listening in on the Unions magi-tech communication which unbeknownst to them were unsecured. Allowing the Azaren to also know the exact position of the Unions military, their strengths, weaknesses ect. Other nations who lacked this knowledge were unaffected.

    Out of the ruins of Ethor is...

    The Elders Council: Remnants of the former government, including the major ministries of War, Magic, and the Council of Electors whom effectively still rule the provinces of the former Union. Though their power is limited, buried deep in sequestered complexes underground they largely struggle to reclaim power over the ruins of their former homeland. The command the weapons of the former nation, and are semi-considered the legitimate rulers. Central to them is the "Protocols of the Sylvan Masters," which were set down by a handful of the last living true elves. Passing the instructions on how to live, the most powerful and secret spells, and general governing rules for the Union.

    The Mathis Ranger Corps: Essentially a civilian survivalist group etching out a living on the frontier of former Union. Mainly the rangers former democratic communities among the rubble and ensure some degree of commerce and travel can happen in the desolate wastes. They however are not under the rule of the Elder Council.

    Viconian Expedition: From the southern confederation of Viconia, once a bitter enemy of the Union, Viconia has moved in on the destroyed lands and proclaimed themselves the leaders of the rebuilding. Viconia arranged a deal during the dying days of the war to use their Balefire Mechanisms on the Unions cities to drive away the Azaren. The Viconian Expedition is the military force sent in that eventually defeated the Azaren with the remnants of the Union armies and other military allies. Ethorian citizens believe the Viconian's to be hated enemies whom have leveled their cities and that they brought the Azaren here.

    Too name just some big players in a region.

  26. - Top - End - #236
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    I'm not sure how many of you have read the Belgariad; it's a series liken to Grand papa Tolkien's Lord of the Rings in that it was earlier on in modern fantasy, follows the same structure (Read, medieval romance standard), but has some very interesting insights in the notes book that was released. The Rivan Codex.

    After rereading the Belgarion and Mallorion again (third time, I've been slacking, three times in four years? should have been seven.) I picked up the Rivan Codex I had and went over it again. The introduction alone gives me an idea of how a professional (and he is very professionally unprofessional about it) goes about building a world. Study, reading the genre, building the 'ologies', be they theologies or not, governments, kings and otherwise fit in to it.

    It may speculate more towards novel writing than world building; but I find they are not too dissimilar. We are simply building the groundwork for others to tell their story, rather than building our own. Or in my case, building sever dozen of my own for others to blunder into catastrophically. I may be of the opinion the Legends and Histories make a world far more than a hundred thousand word piece on who lives 'what where and how'.

    To pull a quote from the introduction of the Rivan Codex (which, I might note, is twenty four bloody pages!) "SF and Fantasy authors don't belong on the same shelf... (large wordy exposition and complaining). They get all bogged down in telling you how the watch works; we just tell you what time it is and go on with the story.

    Which I take somewhat as 'fantasy readers, and fans, have a sense of disbelief, ready to accept so they can enjoy. SF guys will nit-pick for the fun of it, so half the words they read are explanations on how stuff works. Which then gets nit-picked to death'

    I've sort of lost track of my heading here, and just say the Rivan Codex is a great insight into how an author works. He's even one who disapproved of the Victorianism of Medieval Romance, where all the blood, gore, adultery, incest and other not-so-nice bits got pulled out. Tolkien did that, Eddings even said "Do girls in Middle Earth exist below the neckline?" Or something to that effect.

    Good insight, humourous way of describing his work, possibly even worth it for just the introduction.
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  27. - Top - End - #237
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    Quote Originally Posted by QED - Iltazyara View Post
    I may be of the opinion the Legends and Histories make a world far more than a hundred thousand word piece on who lives 'what where and how'....
    I think currently I'm just in a moment of trying to create a coherent story to give a reason for this world to well... exist.

    The current version is that the world has been settled by the descendants of adventurers who ended the last epic war.

    Kinda Long story:
    Spoiler
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    The war was fought across many worlds between a more or less united Human-kind and the Elves who once tried to wipe them out. Humanity being united under the rule of a God-like wizard whose mastery of spells and artifice allowed him to build humanity which on his world was little more then Iron age people into a magi-tech legion that can bridge the gulf between stars and world. He burned a path to the world humans originally came from in his quest to avenge the beings that nearly destroyed them. The Elves meanwhile were seeking means of survival. Some wishing to sacrifice most of the Cosmos and become beings of pure magic who would essentially be able to do anything and live forever.

    At some point a collection of Elves and Humans came together recognizing that the battle between the Human emperor and the conclave of Elves would possibly unmake reality. They had created vast magical storms across the materiel plane that threatened all of existence. The Elves and Humans who united gathered many other races whom had wished to survive the cataclysm used means I've not even decided on to create a vast spell-storm that pulled the conflict into the timeless planes of chaos, locking them away from the material Cosmos. These Elves and Humans eventually joined to form a Half-Elven race, settling on a far away world. However the ghosts of the great conflict linger. Human's were scattered and changed into many races. Some of the Elves who wished to "ascend" at the expense of the rest of the Material plane still linger in various forms. The abominations of the war across the stars lingers.


    Basically we have a kinda of Sci-Fantasy world. Which leaves me in an odd bind. A magi-tech adventure across a world(s) and needs a kind of epic backdrop to explain the existence of this world. The races of the main world are mostly differing ethnic groups of Half Elves that have formed. As well as occasional other arrivals. Such as a predatory race of vampiric humans. A legion of undead avian-like humanoids, Lich Elves among the Stars, and a nearly God-like former king of mankind who declared himself "The King of Kings, Lord of all the Stars" and various other races.

  28. - Top - End - #238
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    If most of the primary races are not native to the planet, then they must have reasons why they chose all to come to the same planet even though that meant getting into conflict with the other factions.
    There must be something special about the planet, that makes it very valuable for all the groups. At best even for different reasons.
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  29. - Top - End - #239
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    If most of the primary races are not native to the planet, then they must have reasons why they chose all to come to the same planet even though that meant getting into conflict with the other factions.
    There must be something special about the planet, that makes it very valuable for all the groups. At best even for different reasons.
    That I'm still working on. I'd prefer it not just be "Random chance."

    EDIT:

    One idea is that the world just so happens to be the nearest habitable world. Which seems kind of lame. The settling races are either too depleted or lacking the magical and technical knowledge to travel extensively so it may just be "Here is the nearest livable place."

    Another might be the world has a unique "vibration," making it suitable to live on. Orbiting a young star and having a unique magical signature, the world could play host to a great new beginning. Also several nearby worlds host life or hosted life.

    It is also plausible that it was just a world selected because other forces were not directly aware of it.
    Last edited by Tzi; 2014-01-16 at 06:16 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tzi View Post
    One idea is that the world just so happens to be the nearest habitable world. Which seems kind of lame. The settling races are either too depleted or lacking the magical and technical knowledge to travel extensively so it may just be "Here is the nearest livable place."
    Sadly, I think, the lamest ideas tend to be the most logical ones. It's certainly something that would force different conflicting groups together. It could also be the world was of some significance before, either as some kind of holy site, or a resource rich world that had been secluded before to protect its appearance. Or something like that.

    Anyway, I have a question of my own.

    What do people think is acceptable (or not, as the case may be) about Animorphs? By that I mean, catfolk, kitsune, even werewolves to a lesser extent. I tend to have a lot of them, as somewhat 'human', but not, races. And, at this point, I see them as no less original, or likely, than elves or dwarves. I may have even started seeing elves as rabbit humans and dwarves as badger humans. Not implementing that, but the image is stuck in my head now.

    I personally think they work, so long as the 'they are cat people, they act like cats!' is avoided. I've also realised they are quite common in ancient myths as well; sirens, merfolk, satyr, selkies, kitsune, centaur, werewolves... And on and on.
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