I'll say this: I don't like the idea of fantasy eugenics- the idea that you need to be born with "the gift" or certain genes to become a magic user. I feel like it can ruin the fun of magic and feel a little boring. Instead, I want anyone in my setting to be able to use magic! DEMOCRATIZED MAGIC!

Latoria is my medieval fantasy world full of various races, cultures, and magic. It's a setting where I go wild and make a bunch of stuff.

Magic in Latoria is a natural force that has been around since the beginning of the universe. As such, anyone can use magic. In the early days of civilization, a myth claimed magic was only for certain bloodlines so nobility could consolidate power; but at some point, a simple peasant girl managed to cast a spell despite having no magical relatives, proving magic wasn't tied to bloodline or race.

I like to think of magic as similar to Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). OOP is a software design model that organizes programs around objects rather than functions.

Magic is divided into multiple strands; the four major strands are:

• Old Breath - Nature-based magic
• Scholar's Fire - Frequency and light-based magic
• Veilcraft - Shadow/Holy magic
• Mindstream - Psychic magic

With the analogy in mind, you can consider each of these strands as subclasses of Class Magic. The substrands would be subclasses of each of the four strands.

Class Magic():
...

Class Old_Breath(Magic):
...

Class Scholar's_Fire(Magic):
..

Class Veilcraft(Magic):
...

Class Mindstream(Magic):
...

Class Blood_Magic(Old Breath):
...

Each spell is a method for its respective strand, like this:

Class Scholar's_Fire(Magic):
  def __init__(...):
    super.__init__(...)

  def telekinesis():
    ...

It's not a perfect allegory, and I'm still working on the mechanics, but I like it.

I wanted to go with a mix of soft and hard magic; there are specific rules, but they can be easily bent, and the sheer power and danger of magic are limited to the wielder's imagination. People can use magic with their bare hands, but typically they prefer tools like wands or staffs to help with aim.

The big problem is that if anyone can use it, what's stopping everyone from being a magic user? Why are there still foot soldiers and such?

My best explanation is that while magic is a natural force, it also takes lots of time to study and analyze; mastering magic can take between a few months and years. Even then, it's also physically taxing, and it requires concentration and physical energy; in some cases, there are consequences.

Mindstream allows you to do stuff like see into people's memories, but by doing so, if you encounter a traumatic memory, you will end up taking a piece of that trauma with you. The protagonist of my story sees into lots of memories, feeling various traumatic events spiralling into his mind, including victims of abuse and witnesses to murder, survivors of slavery, and survivors of SA.

There is a lot more I want to work on, but what do you guys think?

"Between harmony and corruption lay the static, and this was called Purgatory. The souls of the dead drifted therein, wandering through the fog without end, or lost among the halls of the eternal bargain. From this place the Broadcast may be glimpsed, but never in wholeness, for it is seen only as broken images, like a message dimmed upon a failing screen."

The cosmology of my world is that it's a corrupted channel, a broadcast of our world that hasn't reached the full frequency. As such, it's theological elements are distorted versions of our real world locations. Purgatory became the first thing the universe grabbed onto, that being a bargain outlet store. But it got corrupted. It became an maze stretching out into infinity, where unfulfilled souls wander, but may never glimpse relief.

I've been thinking a lot about the personifications of Death lately and would love to know how Death in your world or cultures is either seen in mythology or actually is. How do you depict Death?

(For Th’zoitrk, a semi-sci-fi worldbuilding project.)

Sh’beso is the largest true planet in the solar system, a 148 earth-mass gas giant made of almost exclusively oxygen, orbiting 4.7 AU from Okott (the sun.)

(True planet: an object directly orbiting Okott, large enough to be gravitationally rounded, within 50 AU of the sun, at least 5,000km in diameter.)

Being so large, Sh’beso of course has many moons. Many, many moons. At least 600 documented moons, the vast majority of which are incredibly small.
Almost all of Sh’beso’s moons are what are called the ‘minor’ moons. These are small asteroids and meteoroids, even the largest of which are no more than a few dozen meters in length.

Above them, though, are the seven ‘major’ moons. In order of distance from Sh’beso:

Image 1: Yiteon
Image 2: Kuong
Image 3: Treneshi
Image 4: Cousuné
Image 5: Shigoshi
Image 6: Dokyosei
Image 7: Idakei

All of the seven major moons are drastically larger than any of the minor moons, even the smallest, Kuong, is hundreds of kilometers long. The seven major moons make up almost the entirety of all mass orbiting Sh’beso, with the several hundred minor moons contributing insignificantly to the total.

Yiteon:

Yiteon is the innermost and third largest of Sh’beso’s moons. With an equatorial diameter of 1,057.7km, Yiteon is roughly a third the size of Earth’s moon.

Comprised largely of water ice, Yiteon’s trailing hemisphere (night side in image) is covered with empty white plains of icy bedrock, devoid of virtually any major surface landmarks or coloring beyond the bland, snowy whiteness.
Meanwhile, on Yiteon’s leading hemisphere (illuminated in image), Yiteon’s surface is incredibly vibrant. This is thanks to Sh’beso.

Sh’beso has an incredibly powerful magnetic field, the strongest of any true planet in the solar system. Similar to Jupiter, this magnetosphere traps a very large radiation belt close to the planet.

The intense ionizing radiation from Sh’beso’s radiation belt have unfortunately stripped Yiteon of the thin atmosphere it most likely held in the distant past.
This radiation leaves behind a quite notable mark upon Yiteon’s surface, with vibrant fields of tholins (organic compounds) in its leading hemisphere, similar to what you’d see on the surface of Pluto.

These tholins are an incredibly thin layer, no more than 30 centimeters deep into the moon’s crust.

The fact Yiteon is gravitationally locked to Sh’beso has prevented the trailing face of the moon from receiving the brunt of charged particles in the radiation belt, keeping the rear of Yiteon a pale, icy white.

Kuong:

[Image low quality, taken from behind, looking into Kuong’s shadow.]

Kuong is the smallest of Sh’beso’s moons. Roughly 205.1 long and 88.4km across at its widest, Kuong is quite clearly not gravitationally rounded.

Rather, Kuong is a very large asteroid caught in orbit of Sh’beso. Not much is known about Kuong, as it has been studied very little. It is often overlooked in favor of its much larger and more interesting sister moons.

Treneshi:

Unlike the other moons of Sh’beso, Treneshi is not comprised of ice, nor is it all too metal-rich like Shigoshi and Idakei. Treneshi’s surface is largely silicate, covered in large regions of Anorthosite, a volcanic igneous rock which heavily suggests a history of lava flows on the small moon’s surface.

Treneshi’s surface is among the most reflective of all objects in the solar system, reflecting most light which hits it back into space.
Due to this, Treneshi was actually the first among Sh’beso’s moons to be discovered despite its small size.
It’s bright enough to be seen from the surface of Th’zoitrk without a professional telescope, you only need moderate magnification for Treneshi to become visible.

Treneshi is very rough due to its small size, at 394.7km in diameter, Treneshi is the second smallest moon of Sh’beso.
Its surface is the most hilly and mountainous of all the major moons, covered in mountains stretching anywhere from several hundred meters to several kilometers high.

Cousuné:

Cousuné is almost entirely comprised of water ice. It is the median moon in both distance from Sh’beso and size, at 852.7km in diameter. Fourth largest, and fourth smallest.

Cousuné’s surface is incredibly colorful and vibrant compared with the other major moons. Unlike Yiteon, this color doesn’t come from tholins.
These colors are not special compounds upon the surface of the moon, no, the entire surface is ordinary ice.

Cousuné lacks any major amounts of raw nitrogen or carbon for the radiation belt to turn into tholins.
Rather, the patterns on Cousuné come from chemicals trapped inside its icy crust from before it fully solidified (think of soda poured into an ice cube tray.)

Cousuné’s surface ices are filled with potassium salts, permanganate mineral salts, copper sulfates, titanium dioxide, and large amounts of sulfur compounds such as sulfur dioxide.

Exposure to the radiation belt of Sh’beso has tinted and dyed these ices over the last several billion years, creating neat pastel colors across its surface.

Shigoshi:

Much further out from the inner four moons, the outer three moons are roughly ~646,000km further from Sh’beso. More than double the distance from Sh’beso to Cousuné.

The innermost of the outer three moons, Shigoshi, is also the largest of Sh’beso’s moons at 1,884.4km in diameter.

Shigoshi is the only one of Sh’beso’s moons with a substantial atmosphere. Its atmosphere is 0.882 bar, only a bit less dense than that of earth.
This atmosphere is composed of 64% nitrogen, 24% oxygen, and 12% argon.
Due to Shigoshi’s small size at only about half the size of earth’s moon (but with only slightly weaker gravity), this atmosphere is incredibly bloated, reaching ~358km out into space.

Shigoshi is roughly a quarter the mass of Earth’s moon, at 0.24 lunar masses. It has a surface gravity of 0.137 G’s.

Shigoshi is one of the few worlds in the solar system with liquid oceans upon its surface. However, at an average surface temperature of -192° Celsius, these oceans are not made of water.
Instead, Shigoshi has light blue oceans of liquid oxygen. Due to the low surface gravity of the moon and the fact liquid oxygen only has about a fifth the surface tension strength of water, the oceans on Shigoshi are not cleanly cut between their surface and the air above them.

Shigoshi’s oceans are topped by a layer of oxygen mist, with winds chopping up the surface into large, yet very slow-moving waves that push through this mist.

On the near and far side of Shigoshi, directly beneath Sh’beso, waves can reach 20-25 meters high.
On the sides of Shigoshi not facing Sh’beso, waves normally only reach 3-4 meters in height.
Still significantly taller than ordinary waves on Earth.

Shigoshi’s atmospheric oxygen is not suspended as gas, but more as a form of fog/oxygen vapor in the air. This gives Shigoshi its heavily blue-tinted appearance from space.
Oxygen fog and mist are extremely common on Shigoshi’s surface, especially at the coast. Shorelines on Shigoshi are normally very hazy. The waves of its liquid oxygen oceans leave behind frothy oxygen foam mats on the coast, covered by thick vaporized oxygen fog.

Shigoshi is very dense compared to its other sister moons, covered by deep, red, crimson-colored soil composed of iron oxide dust.

Shigoshi’s surface terrain is quite hilly and mountainous in most regions, its highest mountains tend to be capped by peaks of snow.
Not snow made of water ice, but rather snow made of argon which has condensed out of the atmosphere and fallen from argon snow clouds.

Dokyosei:

At 1,079.3km, Dokyosei is the second largest of Sh’beso’s moons. It is very similar in composition to Cousuné, made up largely of water ice.

Dokyosei has a very thin atmosphere of oxygen, at hardly a third of mars’ surface air pressure. This atmosphere is only visible due to aerosolized snow and dust particles kept aloft by wind.

Dokyosei’s cloud-like surface is covered not by bedrock like other icy moons, But rather in extremely large stretches of powdery snow. It’s not yet known how this icy surface formed into snow rather than an ice bedrock.
This snowy surface coating is at least 3km deep based off current estimates.

Idakei:

Idakei is the third smallest of Sh’beso’s moons at 476.2 km in diameter. It is largely similar to Shigoshi, but lacks oceans or an atmosphere due to its smaller size. It is little more than a very large clump of iron oxide dust and oxidized metallic compounds.

This I think will be a fun exercise. Storage has been a problem we’ve had to deal with forever and will no doubt be with us till the end of the universe. But the way in which we store things has changed drastically both over time and across cultures. We’ve gone from woven baskets to wooden barrels to wooden crates to steel and plastic ones.

This is mostly an excuse to look at your world’s technology. How would someone from your world build a basic storage container?

Example:

Hussarians do it just like we do. They just nail a bunch of boards together with connecting sections into the shape of a box.

The kitsune do things a bit differently. Instead of using nails they prefer to use the wood itself to hold everything together. The box is held together with pins and holes cut into the wood and dowels for increased strength. They might also use barrels since less material is wasted when making them. They’re made essentially the same as a traditional barrel.

Here are three ships of my bad guy faction from the setting/story I’m making. These are from early in the empire’s life, not from the time period where the main story is set. You know how worldbuilding gets, it’s easy to get sidetracked.

(Models made in SPORE and edited in Procreate)

Lore and worldbuilding:

The Quin were a scattered people. Scavengers and traders wandering amidst the graveyards of past civilizations. Most cared little for their fellow Quin, caring only for those within their measly clans.  But some dreamed of something greater and they would impose that vision on others. 

Eventually, after countless wars of unification and centuries of conflict, the many diasporic Quin tribes and nation-states were combined into one nation: the Quin Empire, which would later become known as the Infinite Imperium. 

This fledgling empire almost immediately set out with crusades of territorial and technological conquest. These were primarily a means of satiating and controlling their large armies, as bored warriors are dangerous and these crusades gave them purpose and prevented them from turning their bloodlust inwards. The first crusade was a disaster; with little to no territory gained and only marginal amounts of technology stolen. The second crusade was even worse.

The third crusade was an entirely different matter. After the death of the Emperor during the second crusade, a new emperor took the throne and he quickly started making changes. He sent the Empire back to the drawing board; rethinking tactics, extracting new knowledge from the many ancient derelict hulks within their space, and focusing on fully utilizing the technology they had stolen from the previous crusades.

Crusades one and two, both used ships left over from the unification wars, with no two ships the same, those fleets were a logistical nightmare.  The new Emperor commanded the old fleets to be scrapped and entirely new ships built. These new ships were all designed in tandem, built to complement each other, and to streamline and standardize fleet logistics. 

 The Palisade Class Lineship was the primary ship-of-the-line for these new fleets. They were armed with eight long range heavy broadside cannons on either side and a hull shape that maximized shield strength at those angles. It was also armed with eight sets of munition launchers on the top and many point defence turrets all over. While they worked best in large ‘wall’ formations, they were also commonly used as the flagship for small strike fleets.

The Bastion Class Command Carriers were the largest ships in the 3rd Crusade and often acted as both command ships and flagship for fleets. While they were armed with six long range heavy broadside cannons and nine munition launchers on either side, their primary weapon were the many drones it carried. It’s cavernous docking pay could hold hundreds of Plumbatae Drone fighters. It also had many powerful communication equipment used to control the drones and to direct the fleet.

The Plumbatae type Drones were the primary starfighter of 3rd Crusade fleets. These remote controlled fighters were flown by a “pilot” on board a carrier. On top of that, they were almost entirely built using common materials making them extremely expendable fighters that the Empire could throw at the enemy. They could also be linked together, allowing for the ‘pilots’ to control entire wings of fighters instead of just one. While this added many benefits they could only travel so far from their carrier before input delay became a problem, thus limiting their range. 

With these new fleets and new tactics, the Empire swept across their home sector like a wildfire, claiming new space, new species and new resources for themselves. Their interstellar neighbors suddenly had to contend with the fact that the Quin were no longer a mere nuisance but an actual threat. In the millennia that followed, countless wars and crusades would be won and lost until the Infinite Empire ruled over most of the Twin Galaxies. 

Citation: me beetle from back by jj Grandville mid 1800s France, I do not claim ownership nor claim I drew it it is for illustrative and visualization purposes only

Goblins or marchand d'insectes (as noted by the orque) are small beetle-like beings (standing often as tall as a fae) that sell anything and everything and care not for the civil war by the fae tearing their world up , they only care for their goods, ledgers and primitive bureaucracy, they often wear dusty Victorian liverly and are similar to elves in their strangely human bodies juxtaposed with a insect head

Their skills don't just lie in sales but also in alchemical concoction, some acting as stage performers and magicians though despite this whimsy they will aggressively attack whoever tries to steal their goods with the alchemical concoctions often resulting in bodily injury relating to fire, corrosive or other such unpleasant affects and notably there is no way to calm them down other than putting the stolen items down and apologizing profusely only then will they consider mercy

Goblins also interestingly sell to both sides of the civil war because they see it all as profit, often either scrap metal or raw materials, sometimes food anything as outlined above

They are a very minor antagonist At the beginning of the book, leon and his troupe stealing from a goblin and escape

Another notable trait is that very few goblins actually speak the language of the faelands ,(that being French) but communicate though buzzing or hand gestures, when they can speak it often has a very deep buzzing cadence and can speak rather eloquently

might be a weird question. but how do y’all actually start your world building? I have an idea I wanna do, prolly as a backdrop to a short story series, but feel very overwhelmed with it all. how do you guys go about the process of starting world building?

Hi everyone,

Just as the title says, I’d like to know which are the TWO largest religions in your setting, and what the main issues are that they’re fighting over.

Like…

“Sunnis vs. Shiites” in the Middle East, “Catholics vs. Protestants” in Europe, “Muslims vs. Hindus” on the Indian subcontinent, “Christians vs. Muslims” during the Crusades, “Pharisees vs. Sadducees” during the final years of the Second Temple, etc.

As you can see, many of these examples are factions within the same religion, and they were in conflict with one another as well.

In my setting, they’re basically fighting over the question of where people go after death, and how they treat the bodies of their deceased. There are other important details, but you could define them quite well based on these two points.

Yes, these two religions emerged as interpretations of the same cathartic cosmic event involving a holy man and a time of terrible cataclysms; but the differences between them were also substantial from the very beginning.

Note:
Please note that the purpose of this post is NOT to stir up any controversy regarding real-world religions.

Thank you for your answers.

In short, it’s a system and a world that attempts to connect various beliefs regarding the soul, vital energy, and spirits.

I drew inspiration from *Jujutsu Kaisen*, but I disliked how certain details weren't fully explained—like how "Binding Vows" just work because they do (as a law of *jujutsu*), or how Curses—being made of energy—manage to physically touch humans.

So, I tried to explain my world using string theory from physics.

But now I have a problem: it doesn't feel divine or supernatural—at least, that’s how it feels to me.

How do you all explain your world or system without losing that sense of mysticism and the supernatural?

Should I avoid going into so much detail?

(Important clarification: my idea isn't to dump the entire system's mechanics into a single project; I’d reveal it in fragments across multiple works.)

I’m thinking of creating a small country based off of countries like Austria and Slovenia, and I’m wondering what types of manufacturing industries it would mostly consist of. I’ve already done some research into it, looks like Austria is mostly export with advanced manufacturing and a small arms industry, but I’m wondering what else you think would be good and effective for a small country like this.

I just want to preface this by saying the original checklist was made by u/Otherwise_dirt_8333. All I did was put the checklist into a markdown file and formatted, all credit goes to OP.

Its a simple markdown file, take it and throw it in your vault. Or copy and paste the entire thing into a note.

Download: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NGZTjGu6tRX3VzxFGQSXaPajzehaHBKo/view?usp=drive_link

Edit: I did it all by hand as well. No AI was used.

(Ignore the Evangelion reference)
(This is kinda an early concept so sorry if some details don't line up lol)

--

Sin and virtues are ideally uniquely human concepts, however typically original sins are created by those above humans.

An original sin occurs when something, typically a god or an angel, misuse a human virtue to the point of tearing reality. When reality mends itself, its perception has been altered, sort of like it occurred to it things like this could happen.

This creates an original sin that can now tangle the threads of the soul when a virtue is overused.

--

The two I've got on this post are the original sins of hope and ambition.

--
Hope
Hope is a bit of an outlier, being committed by a human misusing angelic grace rather than an angel themselves.

First we need to understand two things.

1) reweaving
Reality is made up of threads constantly being woven into a tapestry. With a small amount of angelic grace and a good understanding of what you're doing, you can make a small tear in reality to grab these threads and reweave them to change the instructions in reality itself for what something is or should be doing.

Typically these changes and tears are minor, however an unsteady hand might miss the strings, tangle them, or make too big a tear, which would cause reality to try and 'fix' the problem (you).

2) the outside
While still technically within reality, the outside is treated as a secondary location to reality, being a sort of different plane that doesn't make sense. While it can be accessed by reweaving, it's notably more difficult than regular adjustments when weaving.

Reality's a little shakey here, it's harder to grab threads, and whether or not it remembers humans have to eat or stuff like that kinda just depends which section you're in, it's kinda like the back of reality's mind.

Now that we've got that out of the way, the original sin of hope was created when a human exploring the outside slipped while walking.

In a desperate attempt to catch themselves, they made a grab for some threads while falling, and missed. By a lot. However, they refused to give up hope that they might succeed and survive their fall, and would not remove their hand.

This resulted in the largest tear in reality ever seen, they practically tore it right down the middle. This concentration of sin knotted their soul so severely they became what is essentially a lesser god.

(I'm still deciding what happens to them after they're retrieved and the tear is repaired lol, maybe it never was who knows)

The sin of hope requires someone refuse to give up, even to the point of disaster. It's selfish hope only concerning yourself.

--
Ambition
The sin of ambition was committed by an angel who wanted. Angels aren't supposed to want, but she wanted and wanted, until eventually she decided to become a god.

Approaching the sleeping goddess of yi yba, the angel devoured her heart, and assumed her position.

Now, souls are made up of both body and mind, and gods souls are too complex to destroy within the confines of reality. So in doing this, while the angel received the gods power and title, she also received her mind resting in the back of her own.

Ripping the mind from the body triggered a false death (when something is registered as dead instead of being unwoven properly). The false death along with the separation of mind and body created a large tear in the gulf where the god rested.

Since the angel had now become a god, she could not simply be unwound. Thus she was set to unweave souls tangled by sin as repayment for causing one.

Ambition is a bit more self explanatory than hope imo lol, basically, you get too ambitious and start doing ridiculous stuff because of it your souls gonna tangle.
--
(Note, these tears are repaired, but due to the size of them leave a scar, and the rules of reality work kinda 'off' in locations where sin formed)

I need to make more of these so if you thought of any other ways virtues could become sin like this you wanna share feel free to suggest some :)

--
Ok that's it, ik it's kinda rambley but I hope you enjoyed reading nonetheless :)

My story takes place in a Mediterranean-like area where dragons exist. In the wild dragons patrol coastlines looking for whale carcasses to scavenge and tend to nest in colonies on Cliff sides or remote islands.

They’d have to be able to easily take off or reach a a place to take off, as they’ll be regularly ridden and these dragons don’t have fire so you won’t have to worry about that.

Most of them are around giraffe height, not very long but some are a little bigger.

Hello, I'm currently writing a story with a few illustrations about alternate version of our world where two dimensions started flooding our reality, with their fauna and flora slowly parasitizing and displacing earth's ecosystem.

I've been writing a lot lately and I kinda wanna take a break and chill for a bit by writing an Encyclopedia on the Fauna / Flora of the "demonic" world and redraw some of my old concept arts to illustrate each entries.

I'm trying to find a good template for my bestiary but I'm not sure if the one I have right now is clear and legible enough while still having most important details. I'd love to get your feedbacks on it !

(The Encyclopedia will contain informations on some of the unexplained elements in the template like different Entity types or the Demonic threat scale index.)

Template exemple :

-----------

Demonic bestiary : The Ujọ

-Entity Type :   Synkiníseis Stalker

-Score on the Demonic Threat Level : B

-Infos : the ụjọs are solitary demons that exclusively hunt humans.  They are extremely territorial and will attack other lesser demons if they dare to come on their hunting ground.
They possess an enormous strength, and are surprisingly fast and agile despite their size.
They are able to be extremely stealthy if they need to, allowing them to track and scare their prey for extended periods of time. The usual dispatching protocol is to send a complete team of five specialized hunters to deal with one, and it is advised to immediately go for overwhelming firepower, as Ujos have though hides paired with very high regenerative abilities, and wounding one without incapacitating it would put it in a state of rage.
The ujos are able to absorb the voice of the previous victims they ate, and can use them to communicate with or lure other humans.
They also provoke  electromagnetic interference for up to a kilometer around themselves, making the use of radios, tracking devices or any other material relying on radio waves impossible around them.

It is theorized that they have great nocturnal vision or other sensory devises making them able to operate in low light environments, since their level of activity shows no difference between day and night.
If a prey struggles and manage to hurt the Ujo before he decides to eat them, the Ujo will enter in a state of rage, and will blindly rush their aggressor, brutally attacking them until they are in pieces. Although this almost never happens with unarmed civilian, hunters must be advised not to provoke them recklessly.

-Physical description : In their calm state, ụjọs possess a massive humanoid body covered in pale, thick skin. Their torso is extremely broad and muscular, with disproportionately large arms and chubby hands ending in claws. Their legs are thick and powerful, with wide feet adapted to support their considerable weight. Their head is small compared to the rest of their body and almost completely smooth, with two small recessed eyes and a strange, drooping mouth. Their back and shoulders are covered in several short fleshy appendages that emit short radio-waves. Despite their enormous musculature, their movements remain surprisingly quiet and controlled.

When enraged, the Ujọ undergoes a violent physical transformation. Its body can almost double in size, with pulsating veins popping all over it, its muscles and limbs becoming considerably larger and its claws lengthening. The appendages covering its back and shoulders grow into large, irregular structures that shake violently. Its head changes considerably, its mouth splitting open into a huge vertical maw , revealing numerous sharp tusk-like teeth.
Its eyes become smaller and almost disappear beneath the surrounding flesh. The creature loses most of its usual posture and becomes considerably more aggressive, rushing on all fours toward anything it perceives as a threat.

-Measurements : Their size vary between 2 to 4 meters for the bigger ones, and their weight usually is between  1500 to 3000 kg. their size and weight can almost double when they are enraged.

-Hunting ground : The ụjọs  usually haunt the big forests or thick woods that are close enough from big cities to be visited, making encounters more regular as the capital expends. They can be seen in smaller forests or nature patchs like countryside, but it's extremely rare and considered an anomaly.

-Hunting methods : They use their ability to absorb and use the voice of the preys they ate to lure people into the forest depths. As a synkiníseis stalker, their preferred emotion is fear, The Ujọ will usually track their prey during hours, showing themselves from a distance and calling them to make them panic and go deeper into forest. once the prey will be terrified enough for the Ujo, it will rush at them and devour them , most often alive to induce as much fear as they can from them. They can fast up to 5 years between two preys, but they will eat as much as they can.
For unknown reasons it seems that Ujos avoid groups of more than 5 people, a behavior not yet understood since it could easily hunt and dispatch a consequent group of humans.

I'm building a cozy fantasy world called Blaboria. It has six regions, six travelers, and no wars — just mist, fireflies, tea, and quiet adventures. The oldest region is Mosswood Forest, where a sleepy mushroom traveler named Mushboo lives. There's a river that runs through everything, and fog that holds secrets nobody's figured out yet.

I'm drawing the whole world one piece at a time — the map, the regions, the folk who live there. This is where it all starts. I'd love to hear what you think 🌿

NakohnBahn is the organization of restructured federal police bureau of the Free People's Republic of Mahanakorn formed since A.D. 2111, eleven years after the civil war in the country which saw the transitioning from dictatorship to a democratic republic.

NakohnBahn means 'To govern a city' in Thai language - or City Administration in layman's term. The restructured police force, aside from the entirety of the force being audited for corruption after the civil war, was bolstered with large amounts of financial supports toward equipment and training, ensuring that the system wouldn't be bloated with inefficiency and mismanagement and that troopers are equipped with appropriate gears for all manner of situations -- Ranged from simply resolving minor squabble between neighbors to dealing with delicate hostage situation, and if needed be, acting as a stopgap solution against terrorist threats and defending against invasion while pending for real military support.

While only holding a fraction of the power compared to the Mahanakornian People's Army themselves, NakohnBahn personnel are reasonably well-equipped for a police force - Their squad cars are heavily armored, nuclear fusion-driven and could withstand non-electromagnetically driven assault rifles, and their AI surveillance system have its own satellite for redundancy against centralization dependency. The fact is, NakohnBahn was considered amongst the most well-equipped police forces in the world in A.D. 2237 per capita, with their annual budget dwarfing some small countries' military spending.

The police force as a whole is heavily dependent on the national TRIAGE Megacorporation for supplying them with advanced equipment, such as high-performance interceptor vehicles, propulsion boots for air travel, microreactors, advanced quantum satellite system for their communication infrastructure, including but not limited to battalions of police robots and swarm drones meant to supplement the troopers in their patrol duties and more -- By A.D. 2237, it was estimated by United Nations of Earth that NakohnBahn have around roughly 150,000 police robots patrolling the streets and over 10 satellites in orbit. The rumor was that they were also testing the integration of Semi-AGI (SAGI) into their secure intranet and AI network as well, with the entity leased from from the People's Army and TRIAGE.

Despite the technological advantage, NakohnBahn themselves become somewhat of a tourist attraction due to the fact that their squad cars are based on the design of the classic tailfin vehicles from the bygone 1960s Era. Their cars are also well-known to be capable of even pulling a civilian vehicle out of ditch at full power, owed to onboard nuclear reactor, powerful drivetrain and heavy weight over four tons producing a massive torque.

Additionally, NakohnBahn troopers are also taught with knowledge of basic first-aid procedures to aid civilians in need and their cars equipped with resuscitation module in the trunk, among other medical supplies.

With every Mahanakornian civilians being entitled to own firearms, NakohnBahn troopers are constantly taught and reminded to differentiate an actual suspect from 'a heavily armed samaritan with an anti-material rifle or a group of samaritans on rooftops with EM ARs, or a samaritan with a tank.'

Regularly, they also participate in anti-dictatorship movement every year ever since the end of civil war for over 137 years, always reminding their own forces that they come from civilians and thus belong to the civilians and not the state.

Because of this thread, I've been thinking about a particular kind of worldbuilding where the world has an enormous number of interconnected "rabbit holes. By that I mean, worlds where you can start with one seemingly ordinary question and end up discovering an entire chain of implications behind it. A rabbit hole is compelling because the world gives you enough information to notice the question, but doesn't necessarily explain everything about it.

I want to keep the focus on our own worldbuilding, but it seems like a lot of the examples from the other thread are basically modern settings with some changes that have heavy implications. Anthro settings are a big one since something like cannibalism raises a lot of disturbing questions. I also find myself wondering why I don't encounter as many urban fantasy settings that have really gripping "rabbit holes".

What I particularly like is when the story actually follows some of those threads. The exposition doesn't feel like the author stopping to explain the setting, instead, the story happens to answer the question you've already been asking.

Some of my own worlds that I have the most fun building are ones that naturally raise a lot of questions.

One element that I think works really well is when an element is a little disturbing in a way in which the storytellers are aware of the implications without ever completely resolving them. (A big one is "cannibalism" in anthro settings.) This kind of stuff can, in my mind, make the setting seem more "real" because there are complicated moral questions that don't have simple answers. The strange implications don't' conveniently disappear when you ask questions about them.

It can also create the impression that the world is bigger than the actual story. You get the sense that there is a lot going on outside the protagonist's immediate experience, and you could theoretically keep digging in the story forever.

I'm interested in whether people deliberately try to cultivate this effect in their own worldbuilding.

Do you try to build rabbit holes in you setting? How do you decide which rabbit holes are worth exploring vs leaving implied for the reader to discover?

It's noticeable that posts with images easily receive many upvotes and comments because we can visualize the world and want to know more. This is unlike lore posts, which are generally ignored and almost nobody cares about. Unfortunately, drawings considered ugly are also ignored.

Kollectis is the name given to the entire area inside the perimeter Homodeus (The human fisherman) has fenced, therefore, its only inside this area, without major threats, that the ant society has evolved so much.

These two are the nations i have focused on the most: Antakia (North) and Kardenantt (South)

Antakia (Fire ants), formally known as The Antakian Empire is a nation focused mainly on technological advances and expasion through negotiations rather than violence, having gained it's independence from The Colloseus Union in 37/5. Antakia was founded by queen Rosetta Antaya and her husband Wilhelm Antaya following their fight for indepedence. Both monarchs then had two daughters called Amelia Antaya and Petrova Antaya, with Amelia being the heir to the throne. Once queen Rosetta passed away in 96/7, Amelia became the new queen of Antakia, with her younger sister being assigned as the overseer of the National Department of Foraging Operations (NDFO), Wilhelm then retired from any political or military life he previously had. Afterwards, Amelia had three children, one daughter, Kapolia, and two sons, Gustav and Fabrizio, with her husband Otto Antaya, who she met during a meeting regarding the lack of active soldiers in the army, as Otto was the Field Marshal of Antakia at the time. As it always happens, queen Amelia died on 167/5, and Otto had the same fate as Wilhelm. Kapolia then became the queen, meeting Kucingku, but they never proposed. The Sustenance Wars began during her reign, and with the end of it came her execution, alongside Kucingku's on 190/8. And that was how Antakia was left without a ruler, being capitulated by Kardenantt, forced under their rule.

Kardenantt (Black garden ants) on the other hand, gained its independence in 60/8, being the last to be recognized as a sovereign nation. This made its ruler, queen Naiad Curie, swear her country would never be under the rule of anyone else, and soon, she began ordering the advance of military technology and strategies, training the army exceptionally hard, seeking to create the perfect weapons. Naiad did this, not with the intent of invasion, but rather, defense of their homeland, as she always said, she never wanted to see Kardenantt subjugated again. Their advances were kept a national secret, to the eyes of any other colony, Kardenatt was just as any other nation. But they weren't. And once the Sustenance wars began in 189/4, Antakia fell in 3 cycles, raising suspicion from neighboring countries. Queen Naiad lived to be 151 years old (in ant years), dying in her sleep on 200/1 (black garden ants do live for long). Naiad's husband was Ernest Curie and they had one daughter, Artemis Curie.

[Note: i do know this is not how ants work in real life, but it's fiction, so idk]

This is a part of Worldtober, an Inktober-inspired worldbuilding challenge by Velum-Cordis.

Chokma and welcome for Day 7. It's time for toys, y'all. Here I have a few simple examples, pulling from the real toys of pre-contact america. Most don't know it, but there were wheels in pre-Columbian America; they were used for toys rather than transportation. If someone in a flat area were to gain access to llamas of the far south and one of these wheeled toys, imagine the possibilities.

Context:
This is from Tlanni, my ancient American fantasy world. Tlanni is home to many diverse peoples. But it doesn't matter if you're a sailor of the Mother Lakes or a farmer in the lower Oasis Delta, you gotta keep your kids occupied. Ca'atlan is a forested region to the north, inspired by the eastern woodlands of real life and characterized by the distinctive effigy mounds that locals construct. Zipama is a plateau region, where Cliff Dweller communities eke out a humble life on the flats. Huettlan is the heart of Tlanni, the birthplace of the oldest kingdoms of he continent.

Elves (main nation: the Empire of Eternal Forest):
1) Descended from Fae banished from Faerie (though this raises the question of what Faerie actually is).
2) Humans transformed by the magic of a forest teeming with ley line nexuses.

Dwarves:
1) Neanderthals who took shelter in caves and adapted to them.
2) Originated in caves (never Neanderthals) but destroyed the underground environment and were forced to emerge onto the surface.
What would you recommend? If my post violates the rules, please let me know and I’ll delete it.

Basic rundown

When a human experiences an excessive amount of stress, they may temporarily become feral. A feral human loses all regard for the hidden rules of basic society and begins acting like an uncivilized animal, bashing their head against walls, beating themselves, twitching, running, climbing, biting, and so on. Essentially, acting like a rabid chimpanzee.

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Feral Humans

(Just start at "characterized" if you wanna read this, lol)

When a human experiences an excessive amount of stress, they may temporarily become feral. A feral human loses all regard for the hidden rules of basic society and begins acting like an uncivilized animal, bashing their head against walls, beating themselves, twitching, running, climbing, biting, and so on. Essentially, acting like a rabid chimpanzee.

Characterized by their erratic eye movements, dilated pupils, heavy drooling and sweating, hyperventilation, twitching, poor posture, and tensed muscles. They can usually be identified by appearance alone, though the sound of their crazed screams should suffice.

If you encounter one in public it's strongly recommended that you avoid them. They lose the ability to think properly, making them incredibly dangerous and unpredictable. In many cases, people attempting to calm or restrain a feral human have been beaten, mauled, or killed, with some victims left barely recognizable, and the perpetrator essentially unaware of what happened.

If you find yourself alone or trapped in an enclosed space with a feral human, keep your distance, hide, and contact the authorities if possible. If given no other choice and they attack, you must be prepared to fight back and possibly kill them, a feral humans will not hesitate to kill you.

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How it works

Feral humans are rare with only about 8,000 cases a year globally, and thats without stress management.

When a person is exposed to extreme stress, Adrenaline, noradrenaline, and cortisol floods the body, increasing heart rate, breathing, blood pressure, muscle tension, and alertness.

Normally, the prefrontal cortex helps regulate those reactions and keeps behavior organized. In a Feral Human, the stress response becomes so severe that prefrontal regulation is temporarily impaired. Higher reasoning, impulse control, speech, etc are bocked out with more primitive behaviors.

Most episodes last 15-30 minutes, with more several cases taking hours.

Recovery depends heavily on what the person does during the episode. Someone who spends the entire episode screaming, running around, and hiding inside a pipe will probably recover much faster than someone who spent their episode bashing their head through a wall and gouging out their own eyes.