#30 day worldbuilding

[bardic-tales]

7.5.24: 30DWB Issue 2: Physical Planet

I always love to add weather to my scenes to create either a conflict or show how a character could be feeling at any given moment. This was something that I did and didn't really think about.

So, it was fun to think of how this would relate to Fantasy Worlds Collide as a whole.

Your exercise for today is to jot down ten plot devices that relate to weather, and what you think they do to the story (for example: a snow-in can turn the mood very claustrophobic… or very intimate).

Fog can conceal a crime until the perp gets away.

A snow-in can represent claustrophobia and suffocating.

A snow-in can move a romantic situation on further

Rain can create flooding which can separate groups of people

A warm breeze can foreshadow renewal, such as was used by the Great Gatsby where Gatsby will restart his love affair with Daisy.

Weather can provide information about characters. For example, using icily uses weather for displeasure.

A snow-storm can cause someone to drive off the road and become trapped in a car where they have to use their wits for survival.

High winds can knock trees over, preventing someone from escaping a person who is pursuing them.

A hurricane can trap two would-be lovers in a building and force them to get to know each other.

A snow storm can force heroes to turn back and alter their course of action, forcing them to come across stronger opponents.

[void-ink-studios]

Day 30: Cosmic

We had to break into camp before we reached the mountain summit. Dangerous to travel at night, after all, especially with these strange storms. I don't know what we might be facing when we reach above the clouds. I can't see the stars anymore with all of these clouds. It makes me wonder sometimes. I find myself pondering what might be out there, hiding in the darkness of the sky above. This talk about portals has just made that thinking stronger. Kambes expressed her own thoughts. Of what might be out there, beyond the stars, beyond what any of us can even imagine. Many think it terrifying. Am I one of those? Maybe a little. I think we all are, deep down. But I'd be lying if I didn't also find it... exhilarating.

[Prompt List]

[Previous] - Day 29: Arcana

[Next] - Day 31: Portal

[mitchmotch]

i was commissioned by my friend @revalito to draw characters from his story, doroteo and socorro! i love them so much and it was an absolute honor to make this piece for him ^^

[pandoramusicbox]

So I was browsing tumbler a few days ago and stumbled across something called drowcember. And I thought it was a fun idea so I found the years prompt list I decided to do a few of the prompts as a world building exercise on the society that is inspired by the dnd drow. The dark fauth.

That being said there is not a lot of things regarding the dark fauth yet so this is a WiP pice but I am enjoying how it is developing so far.

The dark fauth are a number of societies that hide out in the vast cavern systems of the south western port of O’sten. It is a place that has grown from being one of the few places that people with no where else to go can go, And over a long time and under the influence of the strange magic of the underworld the people have changed.

It is not only the Elv that live there but many other creatures, raquesasha who washed up from the distant continent of mergo and thier decents a long with the vicker who arrived here with a similar fate. Seen as sea devils by the society of O’sten and forced to live here.

In O’ller and O’sten they only recognize a few groups, the human societies, the fauth, the dark fauth, and jevels.

For this bout of prompt baised world building I decided to to focuse in on three city states from the underworld.

The grotto city of Elgar; the cavern bats.

The cavern city of Bal’kac’howl; the black kowl spider.

And the deep city of orgi’alli; the duel millipede

Prompt 1: weapons and armor: I’m not an ameture in drawing armor but I am also not that skilled in it. Picture one

So on the left we have a person from the cavern bat city, wearing a padded jacket and leather armor that sports a characteristic high collar of the city. Their short blades are called night catchers and are a modified dagger meant to wrap around shields and the Handel of exes and blades of swords to deflect blows easily. The front portion is shallow but sharp and roughly an inch (254 mm) in length. The curve is not as sharp but still meant to cut. They are also known for wielding spears.

In the middle we have a black khowl spider warrior, she is wearing glare resistant war paint. Along with the charred ivory hair comb, and the characteristic black shawl of the citizens of the city. The armor is covered in intricate decorations of spider webs. The weapon of choice is short brutal battle axes that let them manover in tight spaces

The armor on the right belongs to someone from the city of duel millipedes. They are wearing a chitinous armor of many overlapping layers that is covering the vitals while still allowing for flexibility. The weapon in their hand is a short kilv. A curved weapon that has one sharp outer edge and a curve with a sharp inside. These blades are well known to be particularly sharp and hard.

Prompt 2: magic/ arcana: so the most infamous part about the dark fauth for the surface dwellers of the world is that they practice dark magic. Which is simply the term used for magic not practiced by the accepted understanding of how magic on O’sten and O’ller works. Each city tends to have a magical specialty of thier own. Though this is not always the case. The magic specialties of these three cities are for cavern bats: they specialize in glyphs and magical arrays but also still practice the magics of the surface world as they live in a giant grotto. They also have a a fair amount of alchemy practiced as well.

Black Khowl: they allow themselves to practice wild magics. Especially any kind of magic that comes naturally to individuals.

Duel millipede: they are most well known for thier alchemy and rune work.

Prompt 3: song, dance, music: so here we have the bat silk dance of Elgar it’s a group dance and has several different dance forms for the bat silk. The one depicted is the rapt step.

In the picture below the rapt step bat silk dance is the dances of the black khowl.and the traditional costume of them as well with the high skirts and the silk sleeves (small open chest, long sleeves jackets that are highly embroidered and have complex ties in the front to mimic the intricate patterns of spider silk. There is the black shawl of wemon and the black ribbons of men. People will wear both or none as well. In the left hand corner of the drawing is a raquesasha playing an instrument that I have yet to name, with a bowl like body and an arm that is bent in a way to allow the strings to have a very low sound near the top and a bright, louder sound on the bowl. It is played either by plucking, strumming or by use of a bow.

And those are the first few prompts, I’ll see how many more I do.

[ubastyyat]

Zelgair renaissance forms, now they are better at sniffing out dinner parties to make serving suggestions and complain about the lack of spices used in the food.  The rope and tassel with the mirror is what they call a hearthline, a sort of physical form of their ai that they use as a conduit.

[beauzos]

wrote a long ass hc post about Tazmily and then immediately proceeded to scream about them for hours in the tags too

[nomaishuttle]

bedtime i surpose.. i loves you all mwhamwhamaha. ok bye

[liesmyth]

TLT thought of the day is that more posts about John Gaius should engage with the fact that he's explicitly an indigenous man. Especially content about pre-Resurrection John and his backstory, intentions, politics, ambitions etc. He's a product of an environment that Tamsyn goes out of her way to describe.

This is noteworthy, because TM doesn't give much thought about race when it comes to the rest of her characters. It's not a key aspect of the present day side of her worldbuilding; see the sparing physical descriptions, her 'take it or leave it' Word of God on the matter. It's not something that she makes a priority to communicate to the reader, and clearly not a big deal for any House or BoE characters that we've seen.

This is what makes John's backstory VERY noteworthy by comparison. Or, rather, the care Tamsyn put into it.

Compare that one GtN character description post — “Judith is Pasifika and Isaac is Chinese and Magnus is Samoan and Abigail is white, but this mostly in my head and you can picture them as monitor lizards if you want” — compare that to the way she really goes out of her way in NtN to make sure that the readers know that John is Māori, and it's something that absolutely shaped his 30-something years on earth.

Like, it's spelled out multiple times, it's not something for the keen-eyed repeat reader to puzzle out. He's explicitly referred to as Māori; Tamsyn specifically namedropped Dilworth; she sketched an underprivileged background for both him and G. lot of John's obsessive attitude about his world-saving project — no compromises and acting now and nobody left behind — it echoes the concern that small island nations have repeatedly expressed towards the climate crisis, and predictably bigger rich countries don't give a shit about.

IDK where I'm getting at! But I think it's a fundamental part of his character that we sometimes overlook. We all live in a society etc, and the society John created is very very different from the one he grew up in — but it's the latter that shaped him.

[homunculus-argument]

I'm fascinated by your post about the "two layer rule," I tried looking it up but couldn't find anything similar. Did you get that from somewhere or is it your own idea? Do you have any resources you would recommend to new writers for world building?

I have no idea where to find it in my own posts anymore (I make 30 000 shitposts per day and don't tag anything), but it's another worldbuilding principle that I came up with at some point: To patch up a plot hole, you only need two or three layers of explanation in order to make it seem like there's infinite depth to it. And you can throw in a third one for fun. And as an example I brought up this:

Question: If vampires can't move in the city streets during daylight, why won't they just move around in the sewer system?

First layer of explanation: They can't go down there, because the sewer alligators will eat them.

Second question, prompted by the first answer: Why are there alligators in the sewers?

Second layer of explanation: They are there to keep the vampires out of the sewers.

Third question, just for fun: But how do the allgiators survive there? Who put them there in the first place?

Third layer of explanation: Sewer nuns. It's their sacred duty to feed and care for the sewer alligators, as a way of keeping the vampires out of there.

Fourth question, which I just came up with on the spot: But why the fuck are vampires vulnerable to being attacked by alligators, of all things?

Fourth layer of explanation: Vampires cannot be harmed by any man-made weapon that is neither silver nor somehow magical. An alligator is not a man-made weapon.

[byoldervine]

Motivation For Writing

Getting Off Your Butt:

1. Aestheticise it. Let the light in through the curtains, turn on your fairy lights, lay a blanket over your lap, light some candles, whatever you need to do to feel like a writer. The right vibes can go a long way

2. Picture that one scene. There’s almost always a moment you’re super excited about that basically inspired the whole book. Picture it, play it out in your head in full cinematic fanfare, gush to yourself about how cool it is and how everyone will love it, picture a future fanbase going nuts for it. You might get excited enough to go back to writing

3. Set a word count goal. During NaNoWriMo this year I think I wrote more than I ever have in one go. The thing that kept me coming back was the desire to not fall behind. I ended up with ~45K words after some complications irl caused me to drop off in the final few days, and that’s all just because I was adding up the 1667 a day word count goal and realising where I needed to be at to keep up. I definitely can’t stay as rigid as I did with 1667 words every single day, but seeing that you’re only a few hundred words off of a goal is super motivating - just be sure to set realistic, easy to achieve parameters for just general use, like 1000-2000 words per week. I know 200 words per day is a popular one for people trying to establish a writing routine that can’t dedicate forever to the craft

Maintaining Motivation:

1. Writing sprints. Writing sprints are a godsend for me, I like to set myself up in the living room with Abbie Emmons’ writing sprint video on. The video lasts two hours and is broken up into two parts; 25 minutes to write and 5 minutes for breaks between writing, so four 30 minute sprints overall. Having the timer and countdown with peaceful music and an aesthetic background is both relaxing and encouraging, as well as giving me a specific time for how much longer I have to push through. It’s easier for me to say “Okay, only ten more minutes, then you can take a break” then it is to say “Just keep going, we’re not stopping until I say so” which is too arbitrary for my brain to accept

2. Give yourself a choice. If you’re struggling to keep your focus, come up with a finish line and tell yourself you don’t have to do any more work once you’ve reached that point. Finish the paragraph, go for another five or ten minutes, keep it up until your next scheduled break. Whatever sounds realistic and doable without being overwhelming. And once you’ve met this goal, ask yourself if you still want to stop. With any luck, you’ll have gotten back into the zone and will choose to keep going. Maybe you’ll want to take a quick break but you’ll come back later on. And maybe you’ll decide that now actually is a good stopping point. Just remember that, if you do still want to stop, don’t force yourself to keep going. You can’t strike deals with yourself if you know you won’t keep your word and all you’ll end up doing is burning yourself out, which will lead to even less writing getting done

3. Try a new angle. If you can’t be bothered to write anymore, is there anything else you can do for your book? Plotting, editing, worldbuilding, character sheets, one-shots all that sort of thing can still be productive for your book while still being different enough to give your brain a slight respite. It also means less work in that particular area later on

Afterwards:

1. Organise. Clean up your workspace and put everything away so it’s nice and neat for when you come back to it. Or if you don’t need to pack things out the way, set it up in an aesthetically pleasing way so it will tempt you back next time. Let it give you the writer vibe

2. Take care of yourself. Get a drink, have a snack, walk about, stretch your limbs, take a breath, cuddle your pet. Something that gets you away from straining your eyes looking at text for a bit. This is also a good time to reward yourself if positive reinforcement is something you use on yourself. If you always feel shitty after your writing sessions, you won’t want to go back to it

3. Positive reflection. Make sure to tell yourself you did good, even if you didn’t get as much done as you would’ve liked or it isn’t up to a standard of quality you’re aiming for. That can all be fixed later on, and you’re infinitely better off than you would’ve been if you didn’t do it. Be proud of yourself. Tell yourself you’re proud of your hard work and your dedication and your effort. Remind yourself that this is a fun thing you like to do. Marvel over how insane it is that you’ve gotten this far - not many people do - and that you’ve got all this tangible work to prove you’ve accomplished something so many people wish they could pull off. If this isn’t fun overall, there’s no point

[tanoraqui]

D&D worldbuilding posit, for all WotC-canon and homebrew games: In days of yore on a plane whose name is forgotten, there was a mighty and much-gloried king called Gi’zhas Kreist. He wanted to be mightier and more-gloried yet, so he made a deal with Asmodeus himself, Lord of all the Hells. Asmodeus gave him the power to build a sprawling, interplanar empire, and promised that his name would be spoken until the end of time.

Gi’zhas Kreist was of course a shit king and an even worse emperor, and was eventually overthrown, his empire pulled down and eroded, all lost to history except maybe the stumped legs of a single statue in a desert somewhere…

And his name, which became and remained a curse throughout all the worlds. Because Asmodeus always follows through, and because Fuck That Guy. So anytime a character, PC or NPC, says something that in English would probably be transliterated as “Jesus Christ”, they are in character, and they won’t know it without a 30+ History check but they’re implicitly saying, “only this dead asshole should have to deal with the bullshit I’m dealing with right now.”

[bardic-tales]

30 DOWD: Day 2: Physical Planet

It amused me to struggle with coming up with 10 plot devices for Cold as Ice. When I outline, I do take account of any weather I want to be featured in the scene.

As the outline is finished for CaI, I thought this would be easy. It turned out to be anything but. What was a 15 minute exercise for Heart of the Horseman turned into an hour and 1/2 for Cold as Ice.

Exercise 1: 10 weather related plot devices.

Your exercise for today is to jot down ten plot devices that relate to weather, and what you think they do to the story (for example: a snow-in can turn the mood very claustrophobic… or very intimate).

Summer breeze - can show that while the “good” characters are beaten that changes are on the wind.

Snow-in - can show that the protagonists are trapped as they wait for what the Wraith will do next. There is no way out.

Snow-in (2) - can force Cyras and Vaene to get to know each other

First snow - can symbolize the transformation that Cyras has as she realizes she has nothing to fear from Vaene. A new beginning to a relationship.

Snow - can show an unwelcome end. The snow could crush a shadow blade. It can also symbolize the melancholy Cyras feels knowing she is lying to Vaene.

Fog - can use to symbolize how emotionally murky Cyras is. She feels like she is pulled between her foster father and Vaene. Makes Vaene see someone as the Wraith, even when it isn’t.

Rain - can wash away illusions. Can invoke associations of rain with spring and hope on an ironic level. Could also lead to flooding and wash out the road out of Olessa. IE: T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”.

Thunderstorms - can mask the Wraith’s footsteps, so she doesn’t have to use much of her magic to hide her presence from her target.

Sunny day - can show how hard living in Olessa really is. Because the top layer of the bog Olessa sits upon is very thick, it is hard for the sun to penetrate. The water underneath is often cold and acid.

Flood - from the melted snow or rain. It can be used to block the escape route from the Olessan Empire to Glorendt, forcing Cyras, the Wraith, and her allies to stay to help Vaene.

[void-ink-studios]

Day 30: Helicoprion

I've been desensitized to strange anatomy long, long ago. Merms have a tendency to not adhere to what you might assume is normal or practical. There's something comforting about the fact they seem to defy explanation, even long extinct. There wasn't much of this fossil, but what was there was enough to make me scratch my head. A bizarre spiral like lower jawbone. It sometimes seems like nature will try almost anything, any and all shapes and strategies and plans, just to see if it might work. We've decided to declare this specimen the Saw Toothed Prowler.

[Prompt List]

[Previous] - Day 30: Dunkleosteus

[Next] - Day 31: Anomalocaris

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[ringleaderising]

Perhaps a hot take but alongside the glory days of Worldbuilding Wednesday on FRblr I also straight up miss the absolutely heinous dragon-fucking of TMI Tuesdays/Thirsty Thursdays

I see people on FRblr like, surprised? now? that certain people are like, attracted to the anthropomorphized dragons/fantasy races of the beastclans and I'm like.

"You're on the third party community of the dragon-autism website, bare minimum 30% of these people see that harpy and go '...would.'"

We used to be a COUNTRY.

[inhuman-obey-me]

Among Us: Obey Me Edition

Lesson 43 gave us some new worldbuilding mixed into the usual shenanigans. We learned some interesting stuff, so let's get into it!

(spoilers for NB Lesson 43 below the cut)

At the end of Lesson 42, we're taken by surprise when Asmodeus makes his wish for winning the Information Sciences part of the RAD Science Fair. He wants to have the brothers visit the Celestial Realm -- a wish that does get acknowledged as crazy, which even Asmo himself didn't necessarily expect to be possible.

And, well...it's not. Actually visiting the Celestial Realm is speculated as still being beyond Diavolo's ability to arrange, or else he would have just done that. The compromise they get instead, we learn, is that they will be allowed to go visit Babel, a place that isn't quite the Celestial Realm - it's actually located in the human realm. But it is, as Belphegor describes, "as close as you can get to the Celestial Realm" without actually going there.

Babel itself is obviously inspired by the story of the Tower of Babel. For those not familiar, this is an origin myth/parable from the Book of Genesis. TL;DR: The people of Babylon/Babel were constructing a tower that would reach the heavens. This makes God angry at their hubris, and thus he divides them by splintering their language, making it so they cannot understand each other and therefore cannot cooperate anymore -- and this is the explanation for why we have different languages/cultures today.

Babel is a very secret place, which only seraphs and the Devildom royal family are supposed to know about. Plus, to enter Babel, you have to use magic to find the entrance in the human world, and that entrance is always moving locations, so not even they quite know where it'll be at any given time -- though Solomon apparently somehow knows both about its existence and also where to find it, because of course he does. As they mention later, it really is not a place that often gets visitors! But luckily for our cast, it just so happens that the entrance will be showing up near Serenity Manor the very night they go to the human world!! Isn't that convenient?

Now, the mythological origins of Babel itself, as a name, can be traced to both the Hebrew and Akkadian names of Bablyon -- in Hebrew, it means "to confuse/to confound", and the Akkadian name Bāb-ilim translates to "gate of God".

Which brings us to the Gate of Babylon and the Test.

After Solomon dips, the brothers and MC fall through an abyss and are brought before the Gate of Babylon. Lucifer mentioned that Babel is a place that "all are free to enter, but none may enter freely". One has to pass some sort of judgment to be granted access to Babel, otherwise they could face various punishments, ranging from being drowned in Cocytus (again) to being erased from Earth. (We're not sure if that means just from the human world or...well, existence? Canonically, the astronomy of the human realm has different constellations than the Devildom...but we're not sure the writers were thinking that far about it.)

And how are the brothers and MC to be tested? Why, by none other than Raphael, who was dispatched specially to judge their entry on this day. He gives them a question/riddle they have to answer within 30 minutes -- there is an imposter in their midst, who is it?

After some back and forth, the brothers soon start panicking and lashing out at each other, accusing Belphegor of being an imposter. MC can help be a voice of reason (along with Lucifer and Beelzebub), and they come to the conclusion that the answer might be that there is no imposter.

And that's true between MC and the brothers -- but Lucifer (and potentially MC, depending on your choice) realizes that actually, there is an imposter. It's just not one of their group.

It's Raphael -- or, should we say, Michael.

This isn't the first time we've seen Michael pretending to be Raphael -- it was a twist that was shown at the very end of Nightbringer Season 1.

Michael, still impersonating Raphael, quickly runs off, letting them know that judgment has passed and they are free to enter Babel. Lucifer adds that the test was not only about getting the right answer, but also that it proves their faith in each other, which is about the kind of Celestial Realm trickery we expect at this point, and then the family proceeds to enter.

Interesting to note is that both Lucifer and Michael mentioned that even seraphs know very little of Babel, which means none of the cast, as far as we are aware, have ever been inside. This begs the question of what exactly is in Babel, along with its purpose.

Hopefully we'll find out in the next lesson!

[andr0nap-wf]

Ok, but now youve really piqued my interest. What do you think Deimos looked like pre-infestation? And, yknow what? Even if you dont yet have the skill to draw it well, do it! Make a shitty landscape sketch of the Son of Mars, the personification of terror himself!

ohboy this ask activated my worldbuilding worms.. probably not that different from how it looks now:

a barren stony wasteland.

except it used to have 30 hour days. i say "used to" bc it seems deimos stopped spinning over time (possibly due to the infestation tearing it apart and making it lose momentum), locking our part of the moon in permanent night. which is. bonkers to think about.

limited terraforming couldve been done since it seems like it served as a research facility outpost for the entrati first and a home second, so just enough has been done to sustain life (which might be even limited to the region around the necralisk, who knows).

they mightve introduced pioneer organisms:

simple, resilient flora like grasses, mosses and shrubbery (like the blue plants we see by the necralisk entrance. the wiki speculates they might be remnants of the original vegetation which i like)

and a small selection of animals: insects, fish and pre-infestation variants of the vulpa, preda and avichaea to propel and maintain the ecosystem.

which can give us a barren, desert-like biome:

think nevada desert but in space? i guess? the grass is supposed to be tiny shrubs but i am not drawing those sorry

besides that we also have plenty of entrati ruins littering the plateau:

like remnants of a suspended road system.

the buildings(?) that housed the requiem obelisks

and other facilities (some of which seem to have collapsed below the surface and lead into the iso vaults)

so i came up with this messy thing thats mostly headcanon, speculation and wild guesses based on what we can find around the necralisk and what i think is cool:

(inclusion of the garden based on sons dialogue (iykyk), attached to the necralisk for convenience. with extra roads. for convenience)

this was fun to brainstorm and i had the game open in the bg while drawing to make sure i got things semi-accurately. im not trusting everythings position on the landscape 100% since a lot seems to have shifted around or is like. missing completely (the roads that lead off the plateau and into the infested abyss. fun!) which imply that the drift used to be bigger before the infestation tore it apart

thanks for the question! i hope this was... helpful? insightful? a fascinating glimpse into my sleep deprived and overthinking mind because i pulled an all-nighter for this and am going to bed now?