World Building Roulette

[Lvl 2 Expert]

So...

Water corrupts creatures toward evil
Trolls with complex society valuing sorcerour powers
Living trees who travel by boats
Cats rule the world
Revolution of sentient sloths

That's quite a few focused around creatures.

There are a bunch of different options with this one, but let's see...

Ones, in the days of myth, the world was ruled by the trees. They were wise and good, and all was well as their flourishing population sustained life itself in the realm of Treedom. But some of their subjects, a jealous cabal of sorcerer-alchemist trolls, drawing power from the 3 disciplines of focus and the 5 domains of energy, made it so that the water itself that the trees subsist on would corrupt them, turn them into chaotic creatures unable to rule the world, and then it would be the trolls' time to shine. All creatures would be effected by the curse, but the thirsty trees would be hit by far the worse of all.

But their time to shine never came. As the trolls saw how events unfolded, nature fell apart and deserts encroached upon all that was ones good, they realized what they had done and they were repelled in disgust. They spend the rest of their natural lives reforming troll society to be about virtue and care for nature. Now it's the mighty but reclusive trolls who carefully tend to what's left of the realm, while the trees, mere shades of their former glory, barely hang on in the ancient shrinking swamps at the heart of moon-shaped supercontinent. The air saturated with vapor allows them to take in as little water as possible, as long as they keep their roots dry, traveling everywhere using their mythical boats, which glide across the surface without a sound, as if they are the ships of spectres.

The trolls too drink sparingly. It stunts their growth and their power, but their discipline and the teachings of their ancestors keep them sane enough to keep fighting for the dying world. But other creatures did not observe the same measures. The cats had quickly surfaced as the new mad god kings of the desert, demanding praise and ruling everything the sun touches. It is the cats that developed the horrifying magics they use to turn any troll caught in their domain to stone, a weapon to which the trolls have no defense. But as the desert grows an uprising by mutated sentient sloths may provide a new chance for life, a chance for adventurers taught by the trolls to slip through the cracks between the battling armies in a raging war and enter deep into the heart of the desert, a place so dry and horrid that it, the very heart of the mad cat empire, could give birth to the beginning of its end, a way to reverse the curse of thirst. Trunkgrowth may know, he is the eldest, his memories may provide us our last shot at repairing the world before all the trolls and all the trees are gone and madness alone will reign supreme.




Okay, the last one was a bit more straightforwards maybe.

[Wizard_Lizard]

sloths aren't as susceptible to thirst, as they have learned to absorb suustenance out of the air?

[Lvl 2 Expert]

sloths aren't as susceptible to thirst, as they have learned to absorb suustenance out of the air?

Good angle, so maybe it turns out the sloths aren't evil and mutated, they want to end things as much as the trolls do, they just don't trust the trolls to run the world again afterwards. They might be working with competing factions of trees too, but if those end up in open conflict the resulting tree-war might end the trees altogether, and with that any hope of ever having lush forests again.

Or maybe it's the trees they oppose. Having spent millenia in their branches they discovered all of their dirty secrets, and the secret of their birth. Now the sloths are working on magically creating a new race of bushes and hedges, a subservient race that will follow their directions, instead of the other way around.

Or maybe it turns out the trolls are actually the ones with the evil plan, again, and the sloths are trying to sort of aim the mad cats at them.

[Gallowglass]

What an interesting build.

As someone pointed out, that's a lot of creatures. My first thought, therefore is to limit the world to JUST the four races

Cats
Living Trees
Trolls
Sentient Sloths

Now Cats obviously rule the world, and the sloths are in a "revolution" so we must determine that the two of them are at odds. And, because they have to rule, that means the trolls and living trees live under Cat subjucation. So we have a world with a Cat-led empire of Trolls and Trees and Sloths, with Sloths in open revolt.

Then we have environment. All we know for sure is that the living trees travel by Boat and that Water corrupts. So I immediately see a desert kingdom, egyptian like, which flows nicely from Cats ruling, as Cats were seen as elegant signifiers of rulership in Egypt. Desert because Water would need to be limited or else it would have corrupted everything already.

My mental image has Cats being evil and Sloths being good because, you know, my natural anti-authoriatism. Things in revolution are "right" and establishment is "wrong". But do I really want to go that way. What if I turn that around. Cats are benevolant, good, non corrupt rulers and the Sloths, who have been corrupted by water, are evil.

I don't know, It just feels wrong. I feel like I'm always going to see the Cats as evil and the Sloths as good.

So, let's assume that the Cats have already been corrupted toward evil by water and the Sloths have somehow evaded that and that's why they are in open revolt.

I haven't even touched the trolls and trees. My first intuitive though was, with water corrupting all the land, the trees were forced to build boats of their fallen comrades and uproot themselves and travel above the water to avoid the corruption. Boats filled with soil, somehow using subduction to extract moisture from the air before it could be corrupted. Sloths, who live hanging off of trees live on the trees on the boats. But that makes the trees AND the sloths both in revolt and doesn't leave much of the world for the cats to rule.

And Trolls? Man I don't know. This is a toughie.

[Wizard_Lizard]

the catsc could bevhoarding the water?

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Okay, one more.

Person 1:
Were-vampires
A Titanic style luxury liner to the stars
Halflings, also pureblood lings
A vast network of underground burrows, tunnels, homes and bunkers

[Sizzlefoot]

Okay, one more.

Person 1:
Were-vampires
A Titanic style luxury liner to the stars
Halflings, also pureblood lings
A vast network of underground burrows, tunnels, homes and bunkers

I choose a cruise to the stars!

Person 2:
guilds of wererat psions
color-coded magic
dwellings made in the corpses of ancient titans
magical mutants who can call upon the star gods for power

[Wizard_Lizard]

I choose a cruise to the stars!

Person 2:
guilds of wererat psions
color-coded magic
dwellings made in the corpses of ancient titans
magical mutants who can call upon the star gods for power

I choose colour coded magic
Person 3
Eldritch tentacled abominations that no man may what of.
planes are made of the periodic table elements
edible furniture
he moon is made of cheese.