worldbuilding-concepts

[worldbuilding-concepts]

bring back tumblr ask culture let me. bother you with questions and statements

[worldbuilding-concepts]

Well... Since you asked. Coffee was cultivated first by the Forest Folion in the second age, as they were no longer being attacked by dragons constantly. Coffee became a spiritual substance in the culture, as well as a medicine. In the late 3rd age, Hob (see: halfling) explorers brought coffee from the then separate landmass of Drakos and cultivated it in their lands, which had a very similar climate.

Potatoes existed in both Drakos and Contina for as long as their has been records of either place. It is theorizes that they are either a gift of a now dead forgotten god (likely Darwin) or they were cultivated by the First Ones, a semiaquatic intelligent species that existed when the continents were together in the prehistoric age.

Fuck that post going around saying "you can have coffee in your story without justifying it :) you don't need to explain everything :)" I want, no, I DEMAND a fully researched ethnobotanical paper on every single food item in your work, if you don't explain to me where did potatoes come from in your fantasy setting or don't explain how the industry of coffee works over interstellar distances with full detail you are doing things wrong and I personally hate you and I hate your stupid story, fuck you

[worldbuilding-concepts]

plot twist: the coffee and potatoes in the medieval europe fantasy setting were foreshadowing that the kingdom is an evil empire actually

[worldbuilding-concepts]

Ive seen people be like in modern fantasy like "oh the pritagonists can just look up spells on their phone how do you solve that"

Imma be honest most people who go on recipe websites and book every recipe they see don't even use them lmao why would with be different

[worldbuilding-concepts]

I've been reading Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros, and it's gotten me thinking about how worldbuilding is multilayered, and about how a failure of one layer of the worldbuilding can negatively impact the book, even if the other layers of the worldbuilding work.

I don't want to spoil the book for anyone, so I'm going to talk about it more broadly instead. In my day job, one of the things I do is planning/plan development, and we talk about plans broadly as strategic, operational, and tactical. I think, in many ways, worldbuilding functions the same way.

Strategic worldbuilding, as I think of it, is how the world as a whole works. It's that vampires exist and broadly how vampires exist and interact with the world, unrelated to the characters or (sometimes) to the organizations that the characters are part of. It's the ongoing war between Earth and Mars; it's the fact that every left-handed person woke up with magic 35 years ago; it's Victorian-era London except every twelfth day it rains frogs. It's the world, in the broadest sense.

Operational worldbuilding is the organizations--the stuff that people as a whole are doing/have made within the context of that strategic-level world. For The Hunger Games, I'd probably put the post-apocalyptic nature of the world and even the existence/structure of the districts as the strategic level and the construct of the Hunger Games as the operational level: the post-apocalyptic nature of the world and the districts are the overall world that they live in, and the Hunger Games are the construct that were created as a response.

Tactical worldbuilding is, in my mind, character building--and, specifically, how the characters (especially but not exclusively the main characters) exist within the context of the world. In The Hunger Games, Katniss has experience in hunting, foraging, wilderness survival, etc. because of the context of the world that she grew up in (post-apocalyptic, district structure, Hunger Games, etc.). This sort of worldbuilding, to me, isn't about the personality part of the characterization but about the context of the character.

Each one of these layers can fail independently, even if the other ones succeed. When I think of an operational worldbuilding failure, I think of Divergent, where they took a post-apocalyptic world and set up an orgnaizational structure that didn't make any sense, where people are prescribed to like 6 jobs that don't in any way cover what's required to run a modern civilization--or even to run the society that they're shown as running. The society that they present can't exist as written in the world that they're presented as existing in--or if they can, I never could figure out how when reading the book (or watching the film).

So operational worldbuilding failures can happen when the organizations or societies that are presented don't seem like they could function in the context that they are presented in or when they just don't make any sense for what they are trying to accomplish. If the story can't reasonably answer why is this organization built this way or why do they do what they do then I see it as an organizational worldbuilding failure.

For tactical worldbuilding failures, I think of stories where characters have skillsets that conveniently match up with what they need to solve the problems of the plot but don't actually match their background or experience. If Katniss had been from an urban area and never set foot in a forest, it wouldn't have worked to have her as she was.

In this way (as in planning), the tactical level should align with the operational level which should align with the strategic level--you should be able to trace from one to the next and understand how things exist in the context of each other.

For that reason, strategic worldbuilding failures are the vaguest to explain, but I think of them like this: if it either 1) is so internally inconsistent that it starts to fall apart or 2) leaves the reader going this doesn't make any sense at all then it's probably failed.

[worldbuilding-concepts]

kobolds are nonbinary puppygirls/puppyboys. send post

[worldbuilding-concepts]

101 evil schemes for dnd from the dragon magazine annual from 2000

[worldbuilding-concepts]

a list of 100+ buildings to put in your fantasy town

academy

adventurer's guild

alchemist

apiary

apothecary

aquarium

armory

art gallery

bakery

bank

barber

barracks

bathhouse

blacksmith

boathouse

book store

bookbinder

botanical garden

brothel

butcher

carpenter

cartographer

casino

castle

cobbler

coffee shop

council chamber

court house

crypt for the noble family

dentist

distillery

docks

dovecot

dyer

embassy

farmer's market

fighting pit

fishmonger

fortune teller

gallows

gatehouse

general store

graveyard

greenhouses

guard post

guildhall

gymnasium

haberdashery

haunted house

hedge maze

herbalist

hospice

hospital

house for sale

inn

jail

jeweller

leatherworker

library

locksmith

mail courier

manor house

market

mayor's house

monastery

morgue

museum

music shop

observatory

orchard

orphanage

outhouse

paper maker

pawn shop

pet shop

potion shop

potter

printmaker

quest board

residence

restricted zone

sawmill

school

scribe

sewer entrance

sheriff's office

shrine

silversmith

spa

speakeasy

spice merchant

sports stadium

stables

street market

tailor

tannery

tavern

tax collector

tea house

temple

textile shop

theatre

thieves guild

thrift store

tinker's workshop

town crier post

town square

townhall

toy store

trinket shop

warehouse

watchtower

water mill

weaver

well

wind mill

wishing well

wizard tower

[worldbuilding-concepts]

I don’t think adding nonbinary to Victorian’s gender system would’ve fixed their weird sexism. If anything I think it would’ve made them weirder and sexismier

[worldbuilding-concepts]

A concept: mermaids in wheelchairs

[worldbuilding-concepts]

The Library

The med students never clean up the messes they leave in the campus library, and once again Erin is left to take care of it.

Content warnings: Gore, Death, Brain Gore, Eye Gore,

This story is strictly for folks 18+, minors DNI.

-----|-----

It was just after closing time that Erin noticed the smell. The pungent scent of hours-old gore was wafting down from one of the upper levels, settling at the libraries help desk. She breathed in deep, a small excitement brewing in the back of her mind, but it was overwhelmed by the dread of spending the last two hours of her shift cleaning up whatever mess had been left behind.

She followed her nose up to the third floor, through the various science and technology sections, until she caught sight of the first spatter of blood on a shelf in the medical and anatomy texts. Of course.

As she reached the aisle she saw it, the delicate mass of gore slowly bleeding into the buildings ancient and already thoroughly-stained carpets. The top of her head was missing, a messy ring of smashed bone and torn scalp framing what remained of her brain, already having faded to a pale, sickly grey. The remainder of her skull, along with much of her partially-liquified brain, was splattered across the aisles’ re-shelving shelf, which now sported a hefty dent right in the middle.

The rest of the body sported no such signs of violence, but instead had been carefully and methodically dissected, a large Y shaped set of incisions scoring the abdomen, and each of the limbs having been flayed of their skin. The abdomen itself was empty as well, with the organs all laid out around the carcass, with the heart, lungs, and stomach all cleaned of their gore.

This was not an unusual sight for a campus library, with medical and culinary students alike often sacrificing their more submissive classmates for a little practice. Anyone who accepted a “study date” in the last two weeks of term had a death wish. That said, finals were still several weeks away, so this was more likely the girlfriend of some overeager student looking to impress her professors, or get her grades up with some extra credit.

Either way, while whoever she was had clearly had her fun, and would be rewarded for it, Erin was the one left to clean up her mess.

First things first, she grabbed a cart and pulled all the freshly bloodied books off the shelves. It had clearly already been a few hours, so she didn’t have much hope, but there was always a chance that if she got them down to the restoration room quick enough they could still get some of the stains out before they fully set. Her shoes slowly collected their own red sheen as she walked back and forth through the girls expansive viscera, pulling volumes off shelves and stacking them on the trolly. The dissection had been precise, which had definitely cut down on the mess, but the actual smashing of the girls head against the shelf, seemingly many, many times, had splattered her blood, brains, and a few bone chips across two racks and dozens of texts.

With the books pulled and delivered down to the restoration room, Erin got to work on the real cleaning. She pulled on some gloves and scraped the upper skull fragments off the shelf and into a large garbage bag, along with the larger chunks of brain, before moving down to the girls body. She couldn’t help but admire it. Even in it’s ruined state, it was beautiful. The pulpy mess atop her head gave way to a single deep brown eye, the other laying dissected beside her. Her narrow lips were coated in a sweet shade of pale pink, and her neck was framed by a deep blue collar. The girls breasts lay draped over her empty rib cage, separated from each other by the dissection incisions, and her slightly plump belly was split down the middle, still soft and pillowy despite the hours of rigor mortis.

Erin stared at the girl, transfixed, and the girls single eye stared blankly back. It could have been her imagination, or rather wishful thinking, but she could swear she saw the faintest, encouraging little smile on the girls dead lips. It beckoned her, drawing her in, begging her to explore further, even as she held half the girls brain in her trash bag.

She knelt down in the gore, her eyes trailing over the girls body once again, before tracing between her legs. Erin hadn’t noticed before, the stench of the girls viscera and the mess of the blood having been more then enough to distract from it, but the tip of the girls soft, bloody cock was coated in a fine film of dried precum. Maybe she hadn’t been imagining that slight smile. The stained tip drew her in, and before she had time to think, she found the dead girls cock nestled delicately between her lips, her tongue reaching out, probing the thin slit.

The salty, metallic, slightly acrid taste of the girls dried blood and cum lit off sparks in her mind and made her heart race, quickly joined by a faint aftertaste of piss. Her eyes fluttered for a moment before she pulled away with a start, suddenly embarrassed that someone might see her trying to give a blowjob to a corpse. She looked around, and listened with quiet intent for a few moments, but soon felt confident in her isolation. Confident enough, in fact, that she decided to take things a little further.

She quickly stripped out of her blouse and pencil skirt, folding the already stained garments and leaving them on one of the newly unoccupied shelves, with her bra and panties crumpled on top. She stood over the corpse, naked and already covered up to her knees and elbows in the girls viscera, her own cock quickly hardening as she stroked it absently and stared down into that one brown eye.

She knelt over the carcass once more, though this time leaning forward, on all fours, her own face hovering just inches from what was left of the girls. With a ragged, shaky breath, she leaned in, and planted a kiss on it’s cold, pink lips. They were slightly stiff to the touch, but she pressed forward, feeling them give slightly beneath her own, as she began to snake her tongue into the dead girls mouth. Her breath filed the lifeless mouth, warming it again, giving it the faintest sensation of animation once more, before she pulled away.

The one brown eye stared back, the once frozen smile now broken, lips parted, an almost lustful expression now contorted onto it’s face.

Erin smiled at her, her own chest rising and falling heavily as she rocked back and made her way down the girls body, nibbling at the cool flesh of her neck, around her collar, and down to her breasts. She tried to pull, and twist, and suck at the dead girls breasts as best she could, but with the cuts from the dissection they refused to remain still enough for comfort, sliding over the partially cleaned ribs, awkwardly slipping out of place, and she reluctantly chose to continue down.

She traced a long, red line down the girls belly, along the scar, and soon found herself once again at the dead girls cock. She held it inches from her face, panting breaths flowing down across it’s soft length, gently warming it in her hands as she looked up once again. The girls one brown eye stared back at her, lips still parted, face still frozen in that last, desperate moment.

Without another word, she pulled the girl back into her mouth, and savored her flesh once again. Even soft, the girl was still a good five inches long, and as Erin took her deeper and deeper, she was able to feel her soft tip press against the back of her throat. There was something easy, and comforting about it, about the way it felt inside her, and she soon found herself lost in the sensation of the cool, gentle flesh filling her mouth.

As she reached the base of the girls shaft, she felt her nose nestle into the girls fine, curly bush, and her head press against her split belly. She leaned in, feeling the soft flesh part around her slightly, her forehead just barely entering the girls empty cavity as her tongue snaked down the final length of her cock, slipping out atop her bottom lip, reaching even further down.

Erin slowly rocked herself back and forth, her tongue drifting down to the girls testes, her forehead rubbing along the dissection slit, and the soft flesh of the cool cock filling her mouth again and again. One hand worked it’s way along and around the flayed thigh, slipping between the muscle and skin where it remained attached, searching between the muscles themselves out of a curious desire to grab her thighs by her very bones. The other hand had long ago found it’s way back between her legs, where she had now devolved from stroking herself, to thrusting into her curled fist.

As her tongue lapped at the dead girls sac, she couldn’t help but wonder if there was a way to get one, last, taste. Her exploratory hand left the dead girls thigh and instead took hold of the corpses testes, and as she pulled her head back until only the tip remained in her mouth, she carefully squeezed with all the force she could muster, curling her fist tight from her pinky up through her index. A thin, watery, bloody dribble of red, grey, and mostly clear liquid beaded at the tip of the girls head as what remained was crushed into paste. Erin lapped up the unique taste, and pulled away with a devilish grin, proud of herself for making a dead girl “cum”.

Erin’s own erection, however, remained unsatisfied, and with that strange taste in her mouth she felt more excited for her own release then ever. She looked back up at the dead girl, still grinning, and gazed into that one brown eye. Her expression shifted, pride morphing into excitement morphing into wonder. She cocked her head as she considered it, and slowly began to crawl up the girls body, dragging her knees across the slick, bloody carpet, until her hips were level with the girls empty face.

She traced her fingers over the girls lips, before sliding her thumbs inside and, with a great deal of effort, pried the corpses mouth open as far as it would go. It was just enough. She stared curiously down at the body as she pressed the head of her own cock against the dead girls lips, the cool skin sending a shiver through her, before she slipped inside.

The warmth from their earlier kiss had long faded, but Erin found it didn’t falter her enjoyment. She began to slowly, methodically pump herself in and out, letting the friction of her thrusting warm those cold lips as its lipstick wore off and slowly stained her cock pink.

She let out a gasp as her head hit the back of the girls mouth, and she pressed in against it as hard as she could. After dozens of thrusts, pressing in again and again, it finally gave way, and she slipped down into the dead girls throat. The cool flesh squeezed around her, seeming to draw her head in deeper with every thrust, softening and easing and warming as she held the girls head in place and used it as a fleshlight.

She felt the pressure building, her own excitement getting the better of her and dragging her towards orgasm far sooner then she had hoped, but she couldn’t stop, not now. As she felt the electricity build in her veins, threatening to flood her nervous system with pleasure, she ripped her cock out of the dead girls mouth and, with a force and ferociousness surprising even her, plunged it down into the girls one brown eye. The thin, rubbery surface popped beneath the pressure from the head of her cock, and a thick fluid squirted from the eye socket as she buried herself inside, leaking out around her cock as she pressed against the girls skull.

The sensation of the girls eye popping around her member was the final straw, and Erin’s mind went blank as she flooded the dead girls eye socket with a torrent of cum. The pearly fluid flowed like tears from the girls freshly ruined eye, pouring down her cheek, seeping in at the edges of her mouth, and dripping down onto her neck, her collar, and even into her empty rib cage. Erin squeezed the girls head in her hands as she shuddered, and leaned her own against the empty book shelf. All she could do was hold herself still, and draw long, shaky breaths.

Finally, after a few minutes, Erin leaned back to sit on her heels. She smiled gratefully down at the mess below her, and said a quiet “Thank you.”

Once her legs were steady again, she grabbed her trash bag and went back to cleaning up the now slightly-larger mess. She collected all the girls separated organs one by one, before moving on to the main body itself. She had to break it’s limbs and dislocate a few joints to get it in without a saw, but she managed to make it work. With all the parts assembled, she re-dressed herself, and dragged the bag downstairs, tossing the girls remains unceremoniously in the dumpster out back.

The final hour of Erin’s shift was a slog, painstakingly sponging up blood and dragging the carpet cleaner across the floor half a dozen times. She removed the dented shelf and replaced it with a spare from the maintenance closet. By the time she left for the night, the whole section looked good as new, minus the missing books still being cleaned downstairs. The only remnants of the girl in the library was a bag in the dumpster, the faint smell of cleaning products in the anatomy section, and Erin’s newfound desires.

-----|-----

Thanks for reading!

You can find all my other stories in this post! ^_^

[worldbuilding-concepts]

pre- and post-Rending maps of the Cosmic Pool, and their meanings

[worldbuilding-concepts]

Text: White Knights who die showing mercy become Bone Knights. Their armor absorbs them, they become one living thing. And they have absolutely zero mercy left after.

[worldbuilding-concepts]

And your housecarl, and your steward, and the bug monsters you saved, and your dog and the random creature your children brought in

Dragonborn: sometimes family is you, your s/o, your adopted children and the multiple families you gained from joining a faction

[worldbuilding-concepts]

WIP of a map of the world from my vaguely steampunk project so far 👍 hell & death on planet figuring out the political boundaries

Taglist: @carnocus

[worldbuilding-concepts]

For reference, here are the symptoms of Vampirism in vague order of progression

- Fever is a always the first symptom, usually between 30 minutes and an hour after infection.

- Joints Stiffening. A temporary symptom.

- Pulse Slowing. Pulse get slower as the disease progresses

- Insomnia. Vampires don't sleep. During the day, they must go to a dark, snug space to enter a trance-like state similar to an elf.

- Paranoia. May or may not be temporary.

- hydrophobia. Similar to it's cousin, rabies vampire systems reject water. Transformed vampires hydrate from blood

- Rashes when exposed to garlic (Allicin). This symptom gets worse as the disease progresses

- Aggression. Similar to Paranoia in that it may be permanent.

- Nausea. A temporary symptom caused by the internal changes to digestion

- Vomiting of blood. This is considered the "point of no return" for most healers. Only an especially powerful cleric can cure vampirism this far progressed. The expulsion of blood is a sign that the Internal biology shift is complete or is nearing completion.

Sunlight hypersensitivity - caused by both a reduction in melenin (which spurs on Paling of Skin, Photophobia cruciphobia (fear of cross shapes), and changing of eye color) and a drastic restructure of skin cells themselves)

- Hallucinations. Always temporary, but may last for years after all other processes are complete

- delirium. Temporary state due to biological change as well as soul-poisoning. During this state is when the canines are pushed out and replaced with the proboscis-like vampire teeth.

- Empathy loss upon emerging from delirium.

- Greater Transmutation properties begin to develop. A vampire cannon polymorph or transform into mist until around a week after regeneration develops

- Heightened Reflexes, Strength, and Speed

- Soul Inversion from a mortalsoul to an animation void. Because of the previous soul poisoning, it allows the affected to retain their personality and memories.

- Magical Potency in all Schools besides Dividation and Summoning (Conjuration) Magic.

- Cold to the Touch

- Tumors which eventually progress to non aging and Regeneration, usually marking the end of the transformation.

Hey all this is Nathaniel Daniel Randallson, president of the International Virus Watch with a public service announcement. If you are seeing this message, an outbreak of vampirism has been observed in your area. Please be sure to report any potential vampires in the area. Also, please be aware of the symptoms of early Vampirism (listed below).

If you display any symptoms, please go to a physician to be diagnosed. Do not go to the temple until you are diagnosed. Once diagnosed, go to the local temple and pay for a restoration or, in the event clerical treatment is unavailable or too expensive, go to the town guard and report that you have vampirism and they shall administer treatment.

If you experience one or more of the following, please seek medical attention.

- Feaver

- Jaw and Neck Pain

- Stiffening of the joints

- pulse slowing

- insomnia

- hydrophobia

- Rashes in response to exposure to allicin

[worldbuilding-concepts]

Hey all this is Nathaniel Daniel Randallson, president of the International Virus Watch with a public service announcement. If you are seeing this message, an outbreak of vampirism has been observed in your area. Please be sure to report any potential vampires in the area. Also, please be aware of the symptoms of early Vampirism (listed below).

If you display any symptoms, please go to a physician to be diagnosed. Do not go to the temple until you are diagnosed. Once diagnosed, go to the local temple and pay for a restoration or, in the event clerical treatment is unavailable or too expensive, go to the town guard and report that you have vampirism and they shall administer treatment.

If you experience one or more of the following, please seek medical attention.

- Feaver

- Jaw and Neck Pain

- Stiffening of the joints

- pulse slowing

- insomnia

- hydrophobia

- Rashes in response to exposure to allicin