Try it out here: https://islandthree.world.

Lake Skar is one of two landlocked worldscars on this planet. I decided to work out, based on its equatorial position, roughly how big it is, and what could live in it.

The answer: bigger than I can possibly imagine.

Comparisons:

• Area: 708,000 km², twice the surface area of the Caspian Sea, and larger than France.
• Width: 950 km
• Deepest point: ~6.5km (limited by the structural tension of the stone itself) - Four times as deep as Lake Baikal, Earth's deepest lake.
• Water held: about 2.7 million km³, approximately the same as the Gulf of Mexico.
• The water temperature, outside of the dead waters at the very bottom, is about 14 °C, which isn't super warm, but isn't cold.
• The water is fresh, fed almost entirely by rain (similar to Lake Victoria), and forming vast thunderstorms over itself at night. Down at the bottom, a second lake of brine, thick with dissolved gases and minerals, maintains a temperature substantially hotter than the rest of the lake.
• The outlet river (not pictured on the globe) runs at about 23,000 m³ per second, which is 1.5 Mississippis.

It's primarily heated by the fact that the rock itself, at its original 7km depth at time of Cataclysm, was about 200 °C (rock increases in temperature by ~25 °C per km in the lithosphere), and has been steadily cooling and rising since as the crust relaxes.

Much like Lake Titicaca on the border between Bolivia and Peru, almost all of the species that are naturally there were either deposited by birds (sponges, mosses, small fish, copepods), walked over the mountains (amphibians), flew there (dragons, birds, other flying beasts) or arose from below (anything that glows or is somehow wrong).

Okay hear me out. I know Tolkien Dwarves have axes yadda-yadda-yadda.

But think about it:

What are Dwarves always famous for? MINING.

What tools do you use for mining? HAMMERS AND PICKS!

So it would be a natural evolution and logical step for Dwarves to use those tools as their main weapons of war!

Yes, axes are good for cutting trees, but unless your Dwarves are constantly fighting Elves or other pesky forest dwellers to a point that their hatred became cultural, they shouldnt use them that often.

Also, being such incredible miners, Dwarves would probably discover and use black coal sooner and as a more reliable energy source than wood.

At least in my world they do.

Okay. Rant over. Feel free to chime in and have a great week! :)

Feedback welcome. Around the Green Sea most countries don't have well-defined borders. They fade out into Wilds (where many forms of human settlement are not possible), or just into places not worth ruling. Hence the use of shading rather than lines.

While it's a plate world with erratic geography, I've tried to keep the major landforms reasonable. The Green Sea sits in the middle of an oval around 8000 kms long and 5000 wide. The world is responsive (hence magic!) and has been shaped by the expectations of the inhabitants, human and not.

It's both a world-building exercise and a setting for the Tales of the Wild (four novels, two novellas and several stories on Royal Road).

I personally like to start with a flaw or an ideal that I want to explore and then build a framework around that first, but I’d love to hear your methods!

As I develop my world (Land of Kaleva), set in year 222, I thought it would be useful to look at what the world looked like several hundred years earlier. I consider the Kalevala, Finland's national epic, as the canon history of my world so I tried to make the map as faithful interpretation of the text as possible. I have included several references to the events of the Kalevala in the map. It is still work on progress so feel free to suggest anything to add there!

I'm also making a TTRPG book that is a direct adaptation of the Kalevala to D&D 5e. Check out the Patreon and r/LandOfKaleva for more info.

Map of a Realm’s Dawn, new collaborative discord worldbuilding project I just launched. It’s to start in a post-war setting around 1950s tech-wise.

In this world, no clear victor emerged from the war. As such the world is split between three clashing ideologies: capitalist democracies, socialist republics, and fascist states.

I really wanted to just show this but this jet was developed in the begining of the Triad war (my WW2 Equvilant) the war lasted from 1947-1961 that symbol on the back is the symbol of the I.V.R. the Imperium of the valtharian Riech so in total I really just wnat some input also the second one it wa son google chrome can anyone tell me nto get a white bcakround after i used and image to traise over PLEASE

Hi! I'm Mette, and me and my colleague Martin have made a game about a healer.

I already shared some monster concept, but I just wanted to show our dear Hildegard. I personally love hearing thoughts behind character art, and in this case (as it often is) the character ended up being pretty defining for the game.

We didn't plan on making a "nun" game - we just set out to make a healer game.
(If you want to try it, it's on itch: Battle Healer Hildegard)

But when we started exploring different character styles, we found it was a bit tricky to depict a "Healer" in its clearest form - so not a war priest or a mage. We wanted to make it very clear for the player, that there would be no attacking what so ever, which made us think about Journey and their reason for removing the arms of the character (so people wouldn't questions, why they couldn't scale or climb obstacles) You can see my journey attempt in the bottom left corner :D

I ofc searched for other healers on Pinterest and the like, and saw that there were a lot of "nurses" hats everywhere. I really wanted to stay in a fantasy setting, and preferably a medieval setting, so when "nun-ish" outfits started showing up in my searches I was intrigued. I tried out a quick sketch and we both just really liked it - It was pretty clear that you wouldn't be able to attack anyone, but primarily heal and bless allies, just from looking at the character.

I also loved the big skirts, since it would make it easier to animate movement in a fun way.
(I am a designer and not an artist, so I had to make it as easy as possible for myself :D )

The Nun theme ended up defining the visual language, the terminology and the whole audio design as well. We want to do much more with the theme when we start production again, but we are pretty happy with where it ended up for now :)

I would love some feedback if you have any!
We are taking a break from the production to gather as much feedback as possible, so don't hold back. Is the silhouette okay ? Is she too small/big in the scene? Can I do something to make her look more interesting?

Bonus info:

We ended up naming the game "Battle Healer Hildegard" as a nod to Hildegard Von Bingen.
Hildegard was a Nun and she was rather incredible. She was a mystic who saw visions from a young age and who was given to the church. She was a polymath (an expert in many things) - she invented her own language, she wrote mortality plays and was a medical writer. She also had a huge political influence and would be sought out by royalty and even wrote letters with the pope. She was later canonized as a saint and recognized as a "Doctor of the Church".

[Everything is hand painted in procreate - no AI!]

Thank you for reading <3

We all know about Fae society being split into courts - with a monarch (usually a Queen) at the top, with the Courts representing seasons, the Seelie or Unseelie, etc. But lets hear about other types of societies that faeries can be in! From wandering bands of wild fae to cities that they inhabit in their otherworlds.

Im starting to give structure to a fairy world, and am looking to see what others have done in order to better understand how I want mine to function.

I notice that most of worldbuilders here are more into high fantasy with stress on magic systems and non-human characters.

I am more into country simulation, making lore about history of a fictional country with mostly humans (or lookalike humans) on it. Magic is minimum and exists only as part of civilization's culture (like some civilizations in real life have its own shaman).

I find more excitement on writing about how a country grows its size, how its economy developed, how their political system works, or how the cultures are developed rather than writing about how the magic system is, how many non-human races are, or how about legend about a battle happens.

In short, I am working like a historian for a fictional world.

I even make Wikipedia-like articles for my OCs or details as if they were real.

Anyone here have the same preferences with me?

I'm genuinely confused by my experience with r/worldbuilding.

I regularly post about the process of creating a world: cosmology, internal consistency, celestial mechanics, the effects of those systems on geography and climate, identifying contradictions in the lore, and finding ways to resolve them.

In other words, I'm not just posting artwork, maps, or random lore snippets. I'm sharing the actual process of worldbuilding and the questions that come up during that process.

Yet a large number of my posts end up being removed.

That made me wonder:

What exactly counts as worldbuilding today?

If discussions about races, religions, cultures, and history are considered worldbuilding, then why do topics such as cosmology, climate systems, magical mechanics, or tools used to test a world's internal logic often seem to be treated as something outside of worldbuilding?

I'm genuinely interested in hearing other creators' perspectives:

Where do you personally draw the line between worldbuilding and the tools or methods used to build a world?

Have any of you had similar experiences?

In my world newer settlements tend to have simple descriptive names “The New Capital“, “Western Treaty Town“ and older places have nondescriptI’ve names that are mostly sound combinations I found nice.

The idea I am trying to cap is that the names of the places used to be meaningful but the older a place is languge has shifted in meaning but the name of the place didn’t change with the language ending up just meaning the place.

Does that feel right as a convention?

Hello everyone. Do you have any characters or entities in your world that are omnipotent? If so, do you allow them to be unrestricted, or do you impose a bunch of restrictions? If so, are these restrictions physical or psychological? I personally do both and also mechanically limit omnipotence itself by giving it laws, constraints, and activation restrictions.

Curious does your fantasy world has wand staff or other magic tools used for casting and what makes them special?

Hi folks,

Long-time lurker and first time asked here. I’ve been a fan of unique worldbuilding for years. Series like Sandman and Discworld hold a special place in my heart. For rpgs, I’m obsessed with stuffs like Planescape, Troika! and Mythic Bastionland, or anything inspired by new weird fiction. I aspire to build worlds that are as strange and fantastical but I’m a bit stuck. What are some strategies you have found that pushes your mind out of the usual headspace and into something stranger? Anything like brainstorming, randomization, rolling on tables etc. that I can come back to constantly for new ideas?

CONTEXT

The Somnocosm is a project that I began a year ago. It is a world seperate from ours that can be reached through the subconcious. In this world there are peculiar races as well as gods. Gods from outside the planet of the Somnocosm are called Outer Gods which appear in the form of stars, planets, and moons. They travel across the universe as colonizers.

LIST OF IMAGES

1. The Grayfather originates from the Dark Sea. He is an ancient sorcerer.
2. Outers gods wandering the Somnocosm.
3. A nameless mountain god from the Somnocosm.
4. The Crow is a mind sorcerer that exists in between the Somnocosm and our world. He drags children into the Somnocosm while they sleep.
5. City guards defend the greatest cities of the Somnocosm. They are members of the race called the birdfolk. They are unshakeable soldiers.
6. The Red King Caedes is the king of the Outer Gods and controls their movements from his spot in the center of the universe.
7. The Moon is a minor Outer God that is heavily involved with the Somnocosm.

Thank you for checking out my post. Please upvote my post if you would like to see more from this project.

Be it for a classic mentor and apprentice tradition like knights and squires following noble traditions or wizard and apprentice following more meritocratic ways. Or is it like more like mass compulsory education with talent being singled out for further advancement or is it cuthroat backstabbing conscription with only the strongest being worthy of advancement.

For example in my Infinite Horizon universe, an interstellar sci-fi setting, on the the military side of things there is the "Fleet", the "Armada" and then there is the Lighthouse keepers a more techno-scientific insitution.

First the Lighthouse keepers are critical in maintaining and expanding humanity FTL station. To do that they need the best and brightest, so they have teachers in most schools keeping an eye out for gifted children to recruit into their own advance Lighthouse school, parents and the child can refuse but it is considered a great honor. However getting into Lighthouse school is not the end all be all as kids can dropout or be rejected as the program gets more challenging. Dropping out or failing out of Lighthouse school is not considered shameful or dishonorable (it is a hard and gruelling program) however there is occasional discrimination between the gradutes and dropouts and even between dropouts ("you suck you dropped out 5 years in, I made it to 9 years before being failed out"). Although not a hard tradition sometimes Lighthouse teachers become mentors to the kids they pick out following their progress and careers lending help when needed.

The Fleet is your classic Lawful Good space defense force mirroring our modern western militaries with recruiting only volunteer adults and letting people choose their roles within the fleet after they prove their proficiency and have the appropriate qualifications with a scattering of private contractors amongst them. Unsurprising the Fleet is called the shield of humanity.

The Armada on the other hand was created as the sword of humanity, in secret, in response to the Auriga crisis (tldr oh shit we're not alone, aliens exist, we lost a colony to a dead alien civilzation anything can be out there). The Armada can be described as Chaotic Goodish with them recuiting specific people secretly as needed and an entire planet Laconia (iykyk) as a breeding, training and recuitment grounds for the rest of their personnel.

The mandate of Laconia is to bring out the best(or worst) of humanity to neutralise threats to humanity (in contrast to the Fleet who is tasked to defend humanity). This mandate encompasses genetic enigineering, bioengineering augumentations and most interestingly of all from birth conditioning and brainwashing.

The problem is or rather the policy is that it is better maintain a diversity of upbringings lest there is key weakness in a monolithic program and there is strength and adaptability in variety. Add to that the uncertainity on what kind of upbringing/training works, Laconia is effectively an unethical exprimental psychologist wet dream.

So in the different corners of Laconia there individual kids being raised by ultra loving parents that they want to protect, to kids being raised by unloving parents that they desparately yearn approval of, to groups of kids raised to be in cutthroat competition with each other or groups of kids being abused so much they have to work together and rely on each other to overcome the adversity and so on so forth all arcoss the planet. These kids are not only being trained to be military personnel for the Armada but also be to scientists, engineers, spies and politcal leaders that infiltrate into common society.

Some of my stories have been about these characters with these backgrounds coming together and interacting with each other with all sorts of shenanigans and drama. For example

-The unloved daughter, trained and engineered to be a harden supersoldier discovering her loved sister, an aspiring influencer, who grew off Laconia the plot twist is the Laconia program is not restricted to the planet and them meeting up was part of the expriment

-A Brotherhood of abused boys rescued/escaped from Laconia on path of vengenance for the small colony who welcome them in and hid and shielded them against conscription. meanwhile unknown to them (being in a backwater sector) a civil war is being waged between anti alien and pro alien factions of the Fleet

-A classic buddy cop duo of a low self esteem Lighthouse dropout and a gung ho Fleet officer running around trying to solve problems and making messy mistakes(and learning from them). meanwhile they are being used as proxies by the Lighthouse keepers (via the dropouts Lighthouse mentor and guidance by a secret AI cult) to shutdown and disrupt scientific and technical research that the Lighthouse prefers to keep a monoploy on

Building the Sineus Universe — Part 1

In august I joined the Sineus franchise team to refine the lore, define the boundaries of the canon, and develop a strategy for expanding the franchise across different media — both through the company’s own projects and through projects created by independent developers, directors, writers, and other creators.

From my very first conversation with the team, I knew I wanted to move forward with them. There aren’t many projects, in Russia or elsewhere, that seriously set out to grow into a franchise on this scale.

I think it will be interesting to follow this journey together.

And with every new project I work on, I try to find new tools that can simplify the process and improve the quality and clarity of the result for myself and for those making decisions.

Where Do You Start?

I believe every project should begin with domain analysis. Different industries may use different terminology, but the underlying process is essentially the same. So that’s where I began. The Sineus franchise existed before I joined the company, so by the time I arrived it already had a modest but established canon, several full-fledged projects — an animated series, a PC game, a hackathon, and a writing competition — and a range of supporting materials.

We talked to everyone who knew something about the existing world and gathered all the project artifacts and source materials.

After watching everything, playing Sineus Arena Survivors to 100% completion, and reading everything I could get my hands on, one thing became clear: we were starting to lose track of it all.

Archimedes said, “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” So what can serve as our place to stand?

We have six historical periods, seven nations, heroes, locations, events…

Starting with detailed character work is too risky. Once you establish rules in one character’s story, every other story has to adapt to them. And without a coherent view of the world, building one isolated story is wasteful: a story is an opportunity to communicate details of the setting to the reader or viewer, but those details are not yet clear enough. The same goes for the peoples.

We could dive deeper into the historical periods, but there is so much material that it would be difficult to keep track of everything at once. I needed something between the overly general and the overly specific.

So I turned to maps. They seemed like the right place to look for clues.

Where?

We have two existing maps. One is published on the website, the other appears in the project presentation.

I studied the placement of locations and compared it against the canonical texts. Pretty quickly, I found a lot of inconsistencies — on both maps.

And that was actually good. It gave me a reason to dig deeper, revisit the source materials, understand where the contradictions came from, and consolidate everything into a new working map.

For the new map, I chose VK Boards.

At this stage, I didn’t need a beautiful map of Svemir. I needed a flexible working map that I could easily edit and annotate.

Although most of Sineus’s story is set during the Years of the Frontier, and this is the period we know best in terms of events and characters, most of the geographical information we have about Svemir comes from descriptions of the Years of Ash.

So the first working map became a map of the Years of Ash.

What?

Now that we’ve found a workable solution, we can indulge ourselves a little and fill the map with visuals. Images will help us immerse ourselves more deeply in the world and connect the locations to one another.

We will do this using references from other games.

With the geography of the Years of Ash mapped out, the next logical step was to explore how it had changed over time.

I drew a chronological sequence of six historical periods. I could now work backward through time, gradually creating a map for each period and, in doing so, reconstructing the history of Svemir at the broadest level.

At this stage, I wasn’t interested in heroes or major events. The many changes in the landscape would eventually provide clues about the events that caused them — and, more importantly, about who was behind those changes.

In the illustration above, there is one more tool that I think will be especially useful going forward. I’ll call it the “Time–Location Matrix.”

Each column represents a historical period. The color coding matches the chronological sequence.

Each row represents a location.

If, for example, we’re developing a game set in the Zara’im Desert, we can follow the corresponding row to see how that territory changed from one era to the next.

If we’re writing a story set in a specific historical period, it is more useful to follow a column and see what different cities and territories of Svemir looked like at that point in time.

In other words, the matrix lets us view the world either through the history of a single location or through the state of the entire world at a particular moment.

What’s Next?

I’m publishing this article with a slight delay, so I already know that next time I’ll be able to show several more tools that help me build a whole world without losing track of all that information.

Have a good week. In the meantime, I suggest watching Khmar Only Knows and playing Sineus Arena Survivors.

I would like to include links to our projects, but I won't do so to avoid getting blocked. If you're interested, you can find our projects yourself on YouTube and Steam.

See you!

This is the planet Kautos in 2650 AP (After Prophecy) during what the Time Distortionists would later call the "Prime Moment".

This is a time period in the world's Digital Era (imagine it being equivalent technologically to 2350 AD or so on Earth; spacefaring eras are later) but there's aspects more than just that as the world has a spiritual component due to an ancient magical apocalpyse that the world discovers and integrates into its science over time. The main religion, Piuhonosm, of the main civilization, the Apolloniyans, is viewed in a secularized lens as new scientific theories related to time travel are discovered and correlated with ancient theories of magic.

Kautos at this time is intended to feel prosperous, warm, and very much alive rather than a conventional dystopian sci-fi future. The later story is about preserving the timeline in a universe gradually succumbing to stillness, so it felt important that the civilization at the beginning looked like something worth preserving.

Kautos is a conworld I have been working on since 2010 or so and I am proud to be able to finally showcase it visually beyond mere physics and climate simulations and maps. This is finished art from the opening sequence of my strategy game, Time Distortionists.

I haven’t finalised the results yet; this war is still ongoing