post-apocalyptic, vaguely BOTW inspired setting

[Flumphburger]

Howdy y'all. Been working on a setting that I originally conceptualized as being for a forum game, but increasingly seems like it would be totally viable for tabletop RPG (not sure if DnD though; there are potential issues). It's somewhat inspired by "Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild" in that it features a post-apocalyptic world in which once-civilized people have been reduced to living in tribal villages or towns at best, and the ruins of their old cities and castles are forbidden and haunted, but the nature and countryside all around them is almost dissonantly vibrant and pristine.

For monsters also decided to lean more into the roots of European folklore, while still drawing somewhat heavily on the post-Tolkien, "DnDified versions" of these legends.

So, starting with the big picture.


The Big Picture

No one knows how many worlds there are, or even really where they are relative to one another, spatially speaking. They could be different planets floating in space, parallel universes, both, or neither. At any rate, regardless of how many worlds there are in the universe, only three are known to modern man.

First of these is the World of the Sun. A place of order built upon restrictive natural laws, preserved in it's stability by the constant administration of its master, the Sun. While there are forces here that would seem magical to us, to the natives they're just laws of physics. This is home of humanity, of the plants and animals they call familiar, and of the races of stone: the dwarfs and the giants.

Humans, animals, and plants are all the same class of mortal being, with humans being the only ones capable of truly understanding the world and their place in it. "Humans" in this case includes three genetically compatable subraces; one hardy and land-dwelling, one winged and cloud-dwelling, and one amphibious and sea-dwelling. Hybrids take after their mothers with regards to these dramatic physiological differences, as a rule.

The races of stone are the firstborn creations of the Sun, and its favorites. Both are much longer lived than any human, animal, or plant, in the same way that stone lasts longer than meat. The dwarfs live inside of boulders, where they craft advanced technology for the use of their larger cousins. The giants spend most of their time asleep, indistinguishable from the mountaintop crags that they rest among, basking in the sunlight day after day after day to build strength for a massive war in the far future.

The Sun is intolerant of anything it did not create, at least within its own domain. That's why Actual Magic doesn't work in direct sunlight, and creatures from other worlds range from being disoriented by sunlight to instantly destroyed by it depending on how exotic their physiology is. Occasionally, meteorites made of molten iron fall from the sun and land on the world below; iron further fortifies the world against intrusion, and weapons made from it are extra effective against non-natives.

Closely adjacent is the World of Mist. This world has no day and no night, instead being dimly illuminated at all times by the omnipresent banks of luminous white fog and mist that bathe it. The rules are much looser here, in large part because this world has no single divinity ruling over it. Instead of one god, its divine power is divided among an entire race of near-immortals, the elves. Legend has it that their race was once a single being akin to the Sun, but somehow became fragmented and then kept splitting up as elves reproduced. If these legends are true then the individual power of each elf should be inversely correlated to the number of elves currently in existence, but no one has tested it out. There are also rumors that a significant chunk of this deity was not broken apart, and that the World of Mist does actually still have a single kinda-sorta-master, but that it simply happens to be much subtler and more reclusive than the Sun.

Instead of plants, this world is full of fungi and strange, algae-like masses that feed on the light and moisture of the mists. Some fungus species have moved into the World of the Sun, though most of them can only survive in sheltered places where the sunlight doesn't reach. Some plants and animals have moved into the World of Mist, where the elves tend to find them entertaining.

The elves rule over a number of lesser fey races in the mist, the goblins and pixies being the best known among them. It's not clear if the elves created these lesser fey, if they too are weaker offshoots of the original mist god, or if they're humans or other animals that evolved into magical mutant forms after spending too many generations in the World of Mist. This last theory is plausible, considering that elfin magic has been demonstrated to have the ability to mutate creatures from the World of the Sun into new, self-replicating forms (this was the origin of trolls, werewolves, and werecats, as well as possibly other monsters).

Some of the fungi have the power to slip their hyphae through the space between worlds and extend their reach into the World of the Sun. For this reason, mushroom circles or "fairy rings" can be utilized for travel between the two, and ingesting certain fungi can grant a human visions of the World of Mist.

Last of the known worlds is the World That Hungers. You can count the number of Sun or Mist natives who have been there and returned alive on one hand, and they were too traumatized to give any more coherent description than "devouring light and drowning darkness" and "monsters." It is visible from both the World of the Sun and the World of Mist as the moon. It's influence causes unexplained, wasting sicknesses that can only be cured by sunlight and prayers in the World of the Sun or intensive magical treatment in the World of Mist. Sinister entities sometimes ride the moonbeams down into either world, where they inhabit the corpses of dead native creatures and reanimate them as tools of feeding an insatiable hunger; it is therefore common practice to cut corpses into pieces or treat them with iron or protective magic before burial.

This world, and its mysterious controlling power, is the enemy of both others. The elves have worked countless spells against it, but its unclear how much damage any of these attempts have actually done. The Sun, for its part, has opted to spend a few millennia powering up its giants and having its dwarfs craft perfect weapons and armor for them, so that it can eventually launch a successful invasion of the World that Hungers.

Some theorize that the stars are all other, more distant worlds that are simply too far to reach. If this is the case, however, one wonders why the Worlds of Sun and Mist aren't also visible in each other's skies.




That's the cosmology and basic mechanics of the setting. If there's interest, I'll go into more "view from the ground" stuff, history, etc in subsequent posts, and hopefully get some advice on how to flesh out more of the details and make it a richer setting than it currently is.

[MoiMagnus]

Quite interesting!

Few remarks that come to my mind:
+ Cremation. Don't forget cremation as an alternative to burial.
+ You talked about a post-apocalypse, but the description of the world doesn't feel like that. To compare to BOTW, with the info you gave, I would put the universe just before the calamity, not just after (some very old knowledge from 10000 years ago have still to be understood, but the world is at its peak, preparing for the "ultimate battle")
+ What about the moon? Is there a moon? Multiple of them? Any meaning to them? Earth-like rotation of the moon around the earth, or Moon and Sun always opposed (so always full moon). Is there a moon for the World of Mist?
+ How big are the worlds? Is there any reason for the people of the World of Sun to be able to travel to the World of Mist (and knowing their culture) but not to the other side of their own world?
+ Having near immortal elves might be a problem for world building, unless they have limited memories and frequent destruction of their records. Reincarnation cycle is also a solution, because it allow to keep "intuition" from their previous life, but forget the exact knowledge.

Oh, and something that come to my mind because it mildly infuriated me in BOTW: old constructions don't "magically" fall into ruins, stones don't "magically" disappear with time. The reason ruins are in ruins is because (1) Wood do disappear (2) Good stone is long to mine, so taking stone from old unused buildings is far easier and cheaper.

[Flumphburger]

Quite interesting!

Few remarks that come to my mind:
+ Cremation. Don't forget cremation as an alternative to burial.
+ You talked about a post-apocalypse, but the description of the world doesn't feel like that. To compare to BOTW, with the info you gave, I would put the universe just before the calamity, not just after (some very old knowledge from 10000 years ago have still to be understood, but the world is at its peak, preparing for the "ultimate battle")
+ What about the moon? Is there a moon? Multiple of them? Any meaning to them? Earth-like rotation of the moon around the earth, or Moon and Sun always opposed (so always full moon). Is there a moon for the World of Mist?
+ How big are the worlds? Is there any reason for the people of the World of Sun to be able to travel to the World of Mist (and knowing their culture) but not to the other side of their own world?
+ Having near immortal elves might be a problem for world building, unless they have limited memories and frequent destruction of their records. Reincarnation cycle is also a solution, because it allow to keep "intuition" from their previous life, but forget the exact knowledge.

Oh, and something that come to my mind because it mildly infuriated me in BOTW: old constructions don't "magically" fall into ruins, stones don't "magically" disappear with time. The reason ruins are in ruins is because (1) Wood do disappear (2) Good stone is long to mine, so taking stone from old unused buildings is far easier and cheaper.

Thanks!

I probably made a mistake by starting with the cosmology and stuff. The apocalyptic event is much more recent, and only changed the status quo in one world (possibly just PART of one world, which ties in to one of your questions).

To adress said questions and comments:


1) I thought I mentioned cremation as an option, but it appears I didn't. Guess I forgot to.

2) I explained what the moon is. It's the World That Hungers, or at least a portal that leads to it. It's visible from both other worlds, and almost universally hated and feared.

3) The size of the worlds is actually the biggest question I'm trying to deal with right now. Again, going off of BotW's inspiration, I was imagining the intended campaign for this setting taking place in a ruined human kingdom, but I don't know if like...is this the ONLY human kingdom? The most important one? Did it once cover the entire World of the Sun, or only part of it? Etc. Ditto the World of Mist; I'm thinking the two are around the same size, but I really need to decide how big that is. I thiiiiink they're each considerably smaller than Earth, but I'm not fully decided. And even if they're smaller, how much smaller?

4) "Near-immortal" isn't the same thing as actually immortal. They do die eventually (though it takes millennia). Also, elves are not a player race in this setting. As the next setting post (which details the actual apocalypse) will clarify, they're mostly going to be antagonistic to human PC's.

5) Yes and no, to that.Stone buildings DO collapse eventually. It just takes much longer than most people give them credit for, and - as you said - usually involves either looting, or one or more natural disasters. However, most of the ruined construction in at least the main focus area of the setting was ruined artificially.

[MoiMagnus]

Thanks!

I probably made a mistake by starting with the cosmology and stuff. The apocalyptic event is much more recent, and only changed the status quo in one world (possibly just PART of one world, which ties in to one of your questions).

To adress said questions and comments:


1) I thought I mentioned cremation as an option, but it appears I didn't. Guess I forgot to.

2) I explained what the moon is. It's the World That Hungers, or at least a portal that leads to it. It's visible from both other worlds, and almost universally hated and feared.

3) The size of the worlds is actually the biggest question I'm trying to deal with right now. Again, going off of BotW's inspiration, I was imagining the intended campaign for this setting taking place in a ruined human kingdom, but I don't know if like...is this the ONLY human kingdom? The most important one? Did it once cover the entire World of the Sun, or only part of it? Etc. Ditto the World of Mist; I'm thinking the two are around the same size, but I really need to decide how big that is. I thiiiiink they're each considerably smaller than Earth, but I'm not fully decided. And even if they're smaller, how much smaller?

4) "Near-immortal" isn't the same thing as actually immortal. They do die eventually (though it takes millennia). Also, elves are not a player race in this setting. As the next setting post (which details the actual apocalypse) will clarify, they're mostly going to be antagonistic to human PC's.

5) Yes and no, to that.Stone buildings DO collapse eventually. It just takes much longer than most people give them credit for, and - as you said - usually involves either looting, or one or more natural disasters. However, most of the ruined construction in at least the main focus area of the setting was ruined artificially.

2) Sorry, I just missed this word. I find it strange that the World That Hunger appear as the moon, because I would have expected it to be more "black hole" than "moon". Moreover, in the real world, moonlight is just sunlight reflected by the moon, and the moon frequently appear during the day, but I guess you can change that for your universe.

3) The easiest solution is to says that the World of Sun and the World of Mist are "reflections" from each others, so they are the same size (or not, see the Nether of Minecraft), but when you travel from one to the other, you keep the "same position". Hence, you can have foreign lands unexplored in both worlds without a direct contradiction. And similarly for the World That Hunger, which explain why it tries to enter the other worlds always at the same locations instead of "far away where nobody would block them"

[Flumphburger]

2) Sorry, I just missed this word. I find it strange that the World That Hunger appear as the moon, because I would have expected it to be more "black hole" than "moon". Moreover, in the real world, moonlight is just sunlight reflected by the moon, and the moon frequently appear during the day, but I guess you can change that for your universe.

3) The easiest solution is to says that the World of Sun and the World of Mist are "reflections" from each others, so they are the same size (or not, see the Nether of Minecraft), but when you travel from one to the other, you keep the "same position". Hence, you can have foreign lands unexplored in both worlds without a direct contradiction. And similarly for the World That Hunger, which explain why it tries to enter the other worlds always at the same locations instead of "far away where nobody would block them"

With the moon, I decided to work off the idea in a lot of folklore and mythologies of the moon being associated with evil or chaos (not in ALL mythologies, obviously; in some cultures the moon has both helpful and harmful aspects, is completely benign, or is actually benevolent. But I was inspired by the ones that have it as evil in this case). I'm thinking particularly of werewolves, and even moreso of some variations of the European vampire myth in which moonbeams falling on a corpse can turn it into a vampire. There are also stories from across the pond, where the full moon is associated with black magic, demons, etc (Aztec mythology being a particularly strong example).

I'm also drawing on some Lovecraft with this concept of the World That Hungers. The white light of the moon has nothing to do with reflected sunlight, in this case, and is much more akin to the colour out of space. Vampires (the most common type of undead in this setting) are based less off of the Dracula-esque living dead concept, and more on the western European legends that Lovecraft drew on for "The Shunned House" (which was basically a precursor to "The Colour Out of Space," fittingly enough).

Granted, "evil" might be the wrong word for the World That Hungers. It hasn't really shown any signs of intelligence or calculated malice. Just, as the name implies, hunger. It's more like a dangerous force of nature than a personal villain, at least as far as anyone in the worlds of Sun and Mist knows.


Regarding the Worlds of Sun and Mist being two sides of the same coin, a la 4E's feywild or shadowfell...that idea does work. It raises questions about what's keeping the Sun to its own half, or the mists (or whatever generates the mists) to theirs, and it does complicate the metaphysics a bit (are there also two halves to the moon? Etc). I'm still undecided, but that is a possible solution.


Will post later today with the actual apocalyptic event that turned the World of the Sun (or at least part of it) into its present state.

[Flumphburger]

So, the history leading to the current state of affairs. The "how big are the worlds" question is really critical here, because it determines whether just one PART of the World of the Sun is in ruins, or all of it. Would appreciate any input or opinions about this.


History Time

A thousand years ago, the World of Mist was divided into several principalities, each ruled by a royal family of elves. These principalities were volatile, often fighting among themselves over resources, grudges, and all sorts of other things. Some houses also, in past centuries, had tried to invade the World of the Sun and enslave its natives, until the Sun turned them back, and overall the lack of accountability in the World of Mist wasn't making anyone happy.

Things got much better with the rise of the Elfking. Originally a mere advisor in one of the lesser Principality ruling houses, this cunning elf tricked, charmed, and fought his way into the ranks of the ruling class, disrupting the local geopolitics considerably in the process. The Mistworld War was bloody, but brief, and ended when the upstart secured an alliance with two of the strongest other factions by marrying a princess from each, and the resulting union crushed all remaining opposition. The newly ascended Elfking, for all his cunning and underhandedness in securing power, proved to be very forgiving of his former enemies, and after a century or two of consolidation he had unified the World of Mist into a peaceful, prosperous kingdom.

Later in his reign, the Elfking began making diplomatic inroads with one or more human nations in the World of the Sun. All three races of humanity were distrustful of the fey, due to some factions having preyed on them in centuries past, but the king was patient, charming, and generous with gifts. He instructed his agents to pray and sacrifice to the Sun before ever stepping through the fairy rings into its domain, and to never stay past dawn for fear of testing the Sun's patience. In exchange for magical knowledge and trinkets from the World of Mist, humans began trading their superior mechanical contraptions and more diverse materials, plants, and animals for the fey to experiment with. One particular kingdom in the World of the Sun (still need to decide if it was just the strongest of several, or literally the only one) became very deeply economically entwined with the Elf Kingdom, and the witches and warlocks who had been taught fey magic were held in high esteem among humanity. This relationship was not an equal one; the fey were the economic and magical powerhouse, and the humans were essentially a satellite of theirs. However, as imperialism goes, it was pretty lighthanded.

Unfortunately, the Elfking died unexpectedly in battle against a surprise incursion from the World That Hungers in his own realm. His two oldest children each had strong opinions on how succession should work. Among some of the old elf principalities, the firstborn child always inherited the throne. Among others, the children of the ruler's first husband or wife took priority. One of the children was older, but the other was born to the king's first queen. The cracks in the system began to show, as various noble houses declared for one side or the other along pre-unification lines.

Outright war broke out across the World of Mist. One of the claimants to the throne, the older Princess, made an offer to the human king. If he would support her faction exclusively with his resources - food supplies, warhorses, and deadly iron weaponry - she would reward him with more favorable trade and autonomy once she was Elfqueen. As her army was already slightly larger than her half-brother's, the human king thought this seemed like a safe gamble, and the two signed a pact in blood.

And, due to a combination of tactical genius and a supremely underhanded and atrocious exploitation of moon-incursion events, her half-brother won.

The new Elfking saw the war a consequence of his father being too soft on his former enemies and allowing old divisions to remain too intact. Being a sweet and compassionate individual who had only the future welfare of his people in mind, he had all the nobles who'd opposed him executed, including a public decapitation of his own half-sister performed personally with her own iron sword that had been gifted from the humans. Next, he decided that the humans needed to be taught their place, and he certainly wouldn't allow a man who had signed a blood oath with his enemy to remain in power in the World of the Sun.

The invasion of the World of the Sun (or at least that one kingdom. Again, still working on this part and need input) was meant to take place in a brief series of nocturnal battles, when the elves and their fey minions could use their magic more or less freely while the Sun slept. Thousands of armed goblins swarmed through the fairy rings, using their numbers to overwhelm the defenders and their keen senses to find plunder - especially any gifts from the slain princess or her confederates - to take back to the World of Mist. Behind them came pixies to create temporary on-sight fortifications to hide from the Sun during the daytime, and the elf commanders who could each lay waste to entire companies of human soldiers with their spells. They also used their corrupted Sunworld creations - the trolls, the werewolves, and the werecats - loose against humanity.

The humans couldn't fight the fey head-on, even with their daytime advantages. It didn't help that the invasion came from so many points inside of the kingdom's territory, some of which weren't previously known to contain fairy rings. Instead, the human king (henceforth known as the Last King) turned to his priests to save his nation. The priesthood, who had long disapproved of how much Mistworld stuff had been coming into the Sun's domain under this dynasty, held a great ritual to beseech the Sun to save them.

It worked. For a moment, the Sun glowed brighter than anyone could remember. In the wake of the brilliant flash, an army of giants awoke themselves from hibernation, tore their immense bodies free of the mountains, and began exterminating every fey they could find with immensely powerful dwarf-crafted weaponry. The humans rejoiced, at first, but joy turned to despair when the giants marched into cities that the fey had invaded, heedlessly crushing buildings and people who got in their way and burning entire towns away to kill a handful of goblins hiding in them. The fighting spilled into the very capital, killing the Last King and his entire family when the castle half-collapsed on them from the crossfire of a giant-versus-elf-noble firefight.

The Elfking was forced to order a retreat. The giants mostly returned to sleep. The surviving humans of the land now thoroughly regretted not taking the warnings of the priests seriously, and trying the Sun's patience more and more over the last few centuries until eventually inviting a total invasion of its jealously guarded realm. Opinions were divided as to whether or not this outcome was preferable to what the new Elfking would have done had the giants not awoken.


That was about a century ago. The humans of the former kingdom (again, not sure how big that is or if there are others) are living in towns and villages, avoiding the ruins of their old cities and castles. Many fey were left stranded in the World of the Sun when their forces broke and the Elfking retreated; bands of goblins and pixies haunt the wilderness between towns, emerging from their caves and dense groves at night to raid. Trolls, werewolves, and werecats continue to prowl, their population having exploded in the chaos following the war. Most of the battlefields were carefully incinerated by the giants to prevent the moon from infecting the corpses, and are now covered in serene new growth forest, but they couldn't find ALL of the skirmish sites, which means there are now more undead in the World of the Sun than there has probably ever been before. Additionally, the giants have only MOSTLY returned to sleep. A few are still awake; either guarding particular sites, including the ruins of the capital and some other major cities, or patrolling freely in search of anything alien.

[MoiMagnus]

Interesting!

A little question: If the WTH incursions are strong enough to kill the Elfking by surprise, how did they not concer the WoS during this post-apocalyptic phase? Is it because WTH incursions on the WoS are significantly weaker than in the WoM? Is it because the giants are still active enough to continuously reppeal them without the human's help? Is it because for some reasons WTH's attack were also weakened during this period?

Some suggestions:

Having some nearby kingdoms and city-states that collapsed at the same time because they economically depended on the main empire. (Similarly to how the Bronze Age Collapse had a domino effect from the meditarnea to India)

I think you could also use a maritime city state alliance (like the greek city states), who had very few contact with the WoM because the elves don't like the sea (maybe they can't swim without magical help?), but has far more problems with the WTH, because the undersea isn't protected by the sun. (And since you took some inspiration from Lovecraft, the sea is usually the good place for monsters). Which mean the cult of the Sun is far more present there, but the need for solutions means that they still use some technology and magics obtained from the WoM during the Elfking's era trough commerce with the main empire.

I think you want your world to be significantly smaller than earth. You probably don't want other empires than the ones you described, though as suggested before, some kingdom and city-state alliances are fine. You may want another kingdom which is "very far away" (like China compared to Europe), and not affected by this apocalypse. But you don't want too many of them.

So, if I had to put more details, and improvise some name and geography, here is what I obtain.

Before the apocalypse:
+ The Holy Solar Empire (the one who made alliance with the Elfking) is a continental power. It has port on the sea at the South and West, mountain at the north and east, and an internal sea at the center, nearby the capital. Most cities are around rivers, to accomodate for the "sea humans" traders. Balanced between the 3 kind of humans.
+ The 3 Hillian Kingdoms, at the east. Mostly hills, very few rivers. A lot of "sky humans", very few of "sea humans".
+ The Sun's Sons Alliance. A militarsitic alliance of a lot of little kindgdom on the islands at the south. A lot of "sea humans", except in deep sea where they are very few
+ The Fabulous Empire. At the other side of the sea at the west. Very few islands on the way make contact difficult and dangerous. News from one to the other usually take a full generation to arrive and be confirmed. (uncomfirmed Rumors are far quicker, of course).
+ A lot of city states (trading post, pirate's base, faith monasteries, ...) exists a little everywhere.

After the apocalypse:
+ The New Solar Empire only has empire in its name.
+ The Hillian nomads move from region to regions depending on the season.
+ The Sun's Sons Alliance is now an alliance of city states, and no longer kingdoms. But the live is mostly the same as before. It significantly expanded in every direction because of the huge amount of refugies from the Holy Solar Empire.
+ The Red Power is a kingdom born from the pirates city states at the west of the old Holy Solar Empire. It is mostly composed of the successors of peoples wanting to flee toward the Fabulous Empires, but were drove away by the Fabulous Empire's navy because they didn't want that much immigrants, and even less peoples who made alliance with the WoM.
+ The Fabulous Empire, who didn't evolved a lot, at least from what people knows. There may be power strugle with other entities, but that's not the subject here.
+ A lot of independant city states.

Of course, those are just suggestion and inspirations, so don't force any of that stuff in your settup if it doesn't feel right. You know your world better than me.

[Flumphburger]

Continual thanks for your helpful feedback.

Interesting!

A little question: If the WTH incursions are strong enough to kill the Elfking by surprise, how did they not concer the WoS during this post-apocalyptic phase? Is it because WTH incursions on the WoS are significantly weaker than in the WoM? Is it because the giants are still active enough to continuously reppeal them without the human's help? Is it because for some reasons WTH's attack were also weakened during this period?

I guess I wasn't as clear about how the WTH works as I thought I was.

The WTH's depredations aren't exactly predictable, and as far as anyone knows it doesn't have any method of determining when the other worlds are more or less vulnerable. Sometimes more bad stuff comes down from the moon, sometimes less. Sometimes conditions on either of the other worlds make it easy for that bad stuff to take root, sometimes they aren't.

You raise a good point about the relative vulnerabilities of each world to the WTH, though. And I think I'm inclined to say that yes, the World of Mist IS in fact more vulnerable than the World of the Sun. After all, the Sun makes sure that invaders are basically immobilized half of the time, and if things ever get REALLY bad the giants can awaken. The World of Mist has generally stronger (than humans) natives active all the time in the form of the elves and their servants, but they don't have a force of nature like the Sun on their side, and while the elves have doubtless cooked up a "nuclear option" or two themselves in case of real emergencies, I doubt any of them are quite as effective as the giants.

To be clear, the World That Hungers didn't kill the old elfking in a surprise attack, per se. Rather, the World of Mist simply suffered an unusually bad incursion, the elfking led his forces to eradicate it, and he - perhaps due to having become overconfident - was killed in battle. The war of succession that followed this enabled the mostly-eradicated invaders to build up strength again (unattended corpses, distracted authorities, etc), which the new elfking-to-be figured out how to use to his advantage.

The World That Hungers hasn't launched a particularly heavy incursion into the World of the Sun since the collapse. However, with the state of things being as they are, even the usual, minor trickles of moon demons are able to do a lot of damage. If there WAS a major incursion right now, things would get...bad.

Some suggestions:

Having some nearby kingdoms and city-states that collapsed at the same time because they economically depended on the main empire. (Similarly to how the Bronze Age Collapse had a domino effect from the meditarnea to India)

That makes sense.

I think you could also use a maritime city state alliance (like the greek city states), who had very few contact with the WoM because the elves don't like the sea (maybe they can't swim without magical help?), but has far more problems with the WTH, because the undersea isn't protected by the sun. (And since you took some inspiration from Lovecraft, the sea is usually the good place for monsters). Which mean the cult of the Sun is far more present there, but the need for solutions means that they still use some technology and magics obtained from the WoM during the Elfking's era trough commerce with the main empire.

I think you want your world to be significantly smaller than earth. You probably don't want other empires than the ones you described, though as suggested before, some kingdom and city-state alliances are fine. You may want another kingdom which is "very far away" (like China compared to Europe), and not affected by this apocalypse. But you don't want too many of them.

Okay, this makes a lot of sense.

Let's say the main, now ruined, kingdom (the Holy Solar Empire as you called it) is on the largest landmass, and covers most of it, or at least most of the good parts of it. Said landmass is maybe India-sized. Surrounding it is a chain of islands with some maritime city states etc on/around them (most of the aquatic people live here), and they've suffered heavily due to the fallout of the Empire's destruction. Further away is a much bigger island (say, maybe Japan-sized) with another major civilization on it. These people have been isolationist for a long time, but with the state of the world being what it is they're liable to start expanding, and perhaps already have begun conquering their way across the island chains (either economically or militarily).

The planet as a whole is about the size of the Indian Ocean then, I guess.

So, if I had to put more details, and improvise some name and geography, here is what I obtain.

Before the apocalypse:
+ The Holy Solar Empire (the one who made alliance with the Elfking) is a continental power. It has port on the sea at the South and West, mountain at the north and east, and an internal sea at the center, nearby the capital. Most cities are around rivers, to accomodate for the "sea humans" traders. Balanced between the 3 kind of humans.
+ The 3 Hillian Kingdoms, at the east. Mostly hills, very few rivers. A lot of "sky humans", very few of "sea humans".
+ The Sun's Sons Alliance. A militarsitic alliance of a lot of little kindgdom on the islands at the south. A lot of "sea humans", except in deep sea where they are very few
+ The Fabulous Empire. At the other side of the sea at the west. Very few islands on the way make contact difficult and dangerous. News from one to the other usually take a full generation to arrive and be confirmed. (uncomfirmed Rumors are far quicker, of course).
+ A lot of city states (trading post, pirate's base, faith monasteries, ...) exists a little everywhere.

After the apocalypse:
+ The New Solar Empire only has empire in its name.
+ The Hillian nomads move from region to regions depending on the season.
+ The Sun's Sons Alliance is now an alliance of city states, and no longer kingdoms. But the live is mostly the same as before. It significantly expanded in every direction because of the huge amount of refugies from the Holy Solar Empire.
+ The Red Power is a kingdom born from the pirates city states at the west of the old Holy Solar Empire. It is mostly composed of the successors of peoples wanting to flee toward the Fabulous Empires, but were drove away by the Fabulous Empire's navy because they didn't want that much immigrants, and even less peoples who made alliance with the WoM.
+ The Fabulous Empire, who didn't evolved a lot, at least from what people knows. There may be power strugle with other entities, but that's not the subject here.
+ A lot of independant city states.

Of course, those are just suggestion and inspirations, so don't force any of that stuff in your settup if it doesn't feel right. You know your world better than me.

Good call on having the wingaling people mostly live in the coastal mountain ranges of the main continent. We'll say they (like several of the island-cities) used to be client states of the HSE (which in turn was something of a client to the elves, though in a more distant and hands-off way), and that its collapse has effected them tremendously.

A pirate nation starting to form out in the archipelagos is a great idea. Ditto the deep oceans being a persistent problem due to spawn of the WTH hiding from the sun down there. Perhaps they and the Fabulous Empire are playing tug-o-war over the smaller islands and what remains of their city states, which is why neither have poked the former HSE much yet.

I need to come up with actual names for all this stuff.

Regarding climate, there's actually something I've been considering that I'm not sure about. Instead of having polar and tropical bands, what if the climate zones are just a random patchwork, with hotter and colder areas sort of scattered all over? Maybe each "tropical" hotspot is centered around a volcano or a regular meteor landing area, or something? Tell me what you think.


Anyway, next post I'll go more into what I have for races, monsters, etc. And maybe draw a rough draft of the world map based on what I've now got. Thanks again.

[MoiMagnus]

You're welcome.

Regarding climate, there's actually something I've been considering that I'm not sure about. Instead of having polar and tropical bands, what if the climate zones are just a random patchwork, with hotter and colder areas sort of scattered all over? Maybe each "tropical" hotspot is centered around a volcano or a regular meteor landing area, or something? Tell me what you think.

Note that the different climate will definitely be associated to part of the world the Sun prefer or don't like. It is your choice if it is indeed true, or just a superstition, but people from the tropics probably consider themselves as "sun's favorites" (unless they pray the volcano as a pagan divinity)

Having zone if cold or heat that aren't simply "north is cold and south is warm" means that there is some kind of power to those region. So you need to settle the question "how does elemental magic works?".

[Flumphburger]

You're welcome.



Note that the different climate will definitely be associated to part of the world the Sun prefer or don't like. It is your choice if it is indeed true, or just a superstition, but people from the tropics probably consider themselves as "sun's favorites" (unless they pray the volcano as a pagan divinity)

Having zone if cold or heat that aren't simply "north is cold and south is warm" means that there is some kind of power to those region. So you need to settle the question "how does elemental magic works?".

I'm not yet sure if elemental magic, as a distinct thing, even exists.

Anyway, I decided that instead of volcanoes as the central "hotspots" it'll be "places where iron most often falls from the sky, and tends to have the sun shine a little harder there during the day." That way they don't all have to be centered around mountains.

Here's a very rough and tentative world map I through together in Paint. The yellow dots are "hotspots." The yellow rings around them are tropical climate zones. The darker rings around them are temperate zones. Everything outside of the rings is boreal, except for the dark blue outlined patches, which are arctic climates with permanent ice caps.



Note that climate is also effected by altitude. The little dome shapes indicate mountain ranges. On the tops of taller mountains you can have permafrost even in tropical zones. The colored rings are less reliable indicators of temperature the further you get from sea level. There are several tropical rings with no landmasses of notable size in them; these are sometimes the birthplaces of tropical storms (the world isn't big enough for actual hurricanes as we know them) during the summer.

The large continent to the east is where the Holy Solar Empire is based. Like you suggested, I also gave it some very mountainous areas to the northeast that the empire never really controlled all that seriously and have birdpeople living in them. The two big islands way off to the west is where the Fabulous Empire is. The various island chains have all sorts of minor societies on them (particularly the fishpeople), and the sort of ring of islands around the small cold spot in the center west of the map is where the pirates are building strength.

The former HSE's continent has five major lakes (albeit one of them salty), and the larger island of the FE has one. Of course, there are smaller bodies of fresh water all over the land masses, and smaller islands all over the waters, just not ones big enough to put on the map at this scale. The northern mountains of the HSE continent also has a little tropical valley Shangri La hidden in it.


EDIT: I'm an idiot, I wrote 100 km instead of 10 km. Fixed now.