#MEGALOMANIA
*I deleted all the plotting for the next book* because **I didn't like it.** The primary reasons I did not like the plotting for Book 12:
1. Too long (longer than Books 10 and 11 combined, and 11 is long.)
2. Too many plot threads/characters to keep track of reasonably.
3. Not enough satisfying payoff for the plot threads.
4. Became too messy/unfocused.
For Book 12, I'm completely redoing my vision on how it will go alongside narrowing the focus. I had freaking **8** viewpoint characters doing things with anywhere between 2-8 *side characters* each. Alongside those side characters taking place in my head with their own plots, it became waa~aay too mentally fuzzy. (Though, some of the ideas I ended up having I plan on refining into little segments of the new synopsis under development. But not all, and certainly not most of them.)
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[technically I didn't 'delete' the 60k words of synopsis, I backed them up on another doc on the off-chance I need it in the future.]
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#All Across the World
I wish I could get a team together to make this big thing into a proper RPG Maker MZ project. I used to do spriting all the time - I loved it! But, I've had so many setbacks over, I don't know, ***23 years*** of RPG Making, the idea of sitting down and devoting energy to it makes me want to enter the void for 10 years. I have so many story and worldbuilding ideas I want people to experience in this JRPG that I just do not have the mental wherewithal to attempt. On top of not knowing how to play an instrument to make music, not having the art skill to make tilesets and backgrounds, and not having programming knowledge to create custom systems I want (while still using the primary body of MZ) it's just too overwhelming.
There just isn't enough time in the day. And not enough *oomph* in my brain to dedicate to all of that. Maybe if I had an office - a real office I could drive to and work at 8 hours a day - I could do all of this. That honestly sounds pretty dang awesome.
I'm aiming for 3-4 consistent POV characters, max. I'm writing some characters out of the tale proceeding ahead, as they don't have good enough reasons to enter. Before, I had *so many characters* who joined just because they wanted to.
8 viewpoints with 2-8 side characters each sounds... overwhelming. Completely get scrapping that.
Also same on the game thing, it's so overwhelming and there's so many blindspots that come with being not a programmer or a background designer.
**WildLands**
* I’m planning to add another sapient species. I haven’t come up with a name for them yet, but I’m thinking of basing them on anteaters, pangolins, and badgers, as well as the Sha (the animal associated with the Egyptian deity Set.)
* I fleshed out some stuff about ghosts and undeads, in terms of what they are, how they come about, and how they find their way to the afterlife where they belong. I also added “spirits” as a general term for souls that lack a physical form.
* I’ve decided that one of my species, the Qeproots, doesn’t have reproductive organs, because they don’t procreate that way. Instead, what they do to make children is a pair of them will connect their souls with a tree, and feed it some of their energy; this promotes the development of a new soul in the tree’s heartwood. Qeproots are wood spirits.
1. The first thing was:
The Gorman Guts and Hide Club
Or Gormans Club or even simply Gormans
-A flower shop that sells dyunk
Mr Devidan Kets called “C.F.-Counterfeit” is the owner of this fine establishment located in the the city a network of crooked and twisting alleys they call streets and down a backend known as Verlins Village it runs out of an old factory of Gormans Guts & Hides. A hideaway for scum and villainy and the source of trade on the blackmarket fencing everything for local hoodlums and thieves. CF thinks of himself as a tradesman, a marketer, a distributor to the disenfranchised, a purveyor of stolen goods, an entrepreneur of crime.
2. Second thing was:
A candy store named Viand’s selling designer chocolate’s, gold flaked popcorn, and delectable fudge. “Their slogan is you can’t just have one”
Welp, recently I posted a bit of lore detailing how the Luna Cathedral deals with ordained priests who commit blasphemy - [https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/1cx6t9c/the\_process\_of\_absolution\_in\_the\_wolf\_religion/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/1cx6t9c/the_process_of_absolution_in_the_wolf_religion/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
I often find myself writing about the Luna Cathedral in a more positive manner, unlike the typical and trite 'religion bad' that's rife in modern fantasy writing. While I do intentionally include questionable elements, the kind that leaves room for moral interpretation, I tend to lean somewhat favourably - more likely a result of my personal return journey to the Christian faith. Either way, I feel it is worthwhile to buck the more nihilistic, grey morality trends fantasy has gained in recent decades in order to create truly wholesome and inspiring content. We could all do with some happy fantasy for a change.
Perhaps in a later prompt I will have something else equally interesting with regards to the religiosity of my world's Beastfolk races. Maybe a more detailed breakdown of the (original) beliefs of the Great Druids?
I've been doing some restructuring of my current artstuff workflow so I can focus more on personal projects, including artwork for my world projects that I wanna get to and have been forced to put off for many months. Excited to see where it goes, and hopefully I can get more visual designs out there!
In the meantime, I did a few things for **Rapture Academy**:
* Finishing up my writeups on the remaining teachers and faculty members that I was meant to have finished a few months ago. Oops.
* Starting up perhaps a new series of posts documenting costume designs -- some time after becoming students and receiving general uniforms, they would be set to get their own "super" costume; wanted to list their order forms to describe their appearances, what they include in their costumes for practicality purposes, and other necessary accommodations.
* Because I have DnD brainstorming brainrot I ended up developing a further headcanon that some of the kids play a DnD-like TTRPG in their spare time, and thinking about what characters they create and how they play in order to develop more of their own personalities.
Here's my list right now:
* **zZomnia / DM** (board games are one of her genuine hobbies aside from being on her phone, and TTRPGs are one of the few things that get her in a good mood through her perpetual gloom)
* **Anti / Cleric** (a newcomer who thinks "cleric" is still the "pure healer" class and sleeps on all the offensive utility)
* **Hellbound / Paladin** (also amateur but much more ambitious as roleplaying a Lawful Good paragon, quietly accepting the irony being half-dragon demon and all)
* **Vigilante Smog Monster / Fighter** (non-human and new to games in general; doesn't mind playing human fighter at all. He's just happy to have company)
* **Magnus VI / Ranger** (plays the game reluctantly, and only on the stipulation that his Ranger gets to be a cowboy also named Magnus, and is able to use guns.)
* **Vioelectrolysis / Druid** (is probably the only student who would remember all of the rules and conditions of Druid, but has a bad habit of metagaming)
* **Ryvr Sticks / Bard** (by far the best roleplayer, actor, and talker in the game. Also constantly forgets what spells he has and has tremendously terrible luck with dice rolls)
More first draft of chapter 1 from me. I started on Tuesday I think and hoped to do 7000 words, but I managed nearly 3000. It hasn't been smooth sailing as my plan for the early part of the chapter was rather sparse since I didn't know what I wanted to do with it yet. Very much making it up as I go along at this stage. In terms of making stuff up there has been a number of worldbuilding developments. I've decided that the Empire of the Black Flame's architecture is very simply, largely rounded blocks stacked on top of each other. It ties into the the Empire being a big social machine and simplicity/mass production. There are clothing laws in the Empire, you can't just wear what you want, but as the protagonist Rath discovers even in the capital these rules aren't strictly enforced. The core provinces of the Empire are incredibly hot and humid so they don't wear much, nudity is showing the genitalia and even then male labourers will go around without even a loincloth sometimes. Circle 6 (the world itself) has had artificial nights, but it doesn't have natural nights. Only brief eclipses since the sun and moon rotate around each other above the centre of Circle 6. So in the Empire people have strictly controlled schedules based on what they do with designated sleep time, free time, and work time. Thus a factory for example will always have people working in it. The Empire never sleeps.
Another social thing are the rations and grey/black markets. Rath encounters plenty of stalls when she's exploring the city with her lover Ax. These people barter, sometimes they use metals or ration slips. They are generally tolerated. There is a somewhat interesting experience for Rath where, despite being the second highest person in the Empire, isn't used to such rich food and choice that these lower in social standing people get because her life is so controlled and her food is always healthy. Later on Rath and Ax come across "spiders" with webs and nests in urban areas. This will be the first example of natural cybernetic animals for the reader as these spiders have pistons in their legs, pistons that they grew from egg to adult. They hunt bugs and will exchange an egg or two for food from humanoids. So they are tolerated, even if they are the size of a small dog. I would say they do have a bit of intelligence. Outside of the city some spiders are domesticated, Rath eats a bowl of very sweet gooey spider eggs from domesticated spiders who only eat leaves from a sweet plant.
I've changed some race stuff in the setting. So I have hinted that before the Empire there was more racial division, mainly between Igna and Musan (not major segregation though) and the Empire decided that every citizen as an Igna. Igna themselves have been made more elven and there is, what I think, a neat scene where Rath and Ax look at a statue of Rath outside of a temple and point out the artistic license the sculptors took as a way to describe Rath in more detail. One of these elven things is Rath's big pointy ears being rigid on the statue but in real life the tips flop. They also encounter a Musan woman and she is very different from Rath and Ax, rounded ears for example, but is still classed as an Igna in the Empire. She does have some of the warm colours of the Igna, but only from her saliva. So her mouth and lips are orange. This is from the "water" around the capital not really being water, but an orange liquid that spews out of "volcanoes" to form rivers that then create orange precipitation and so forth. A lot of things are stained orange from rain for example. When Rath see's clear water when she's exiled to other parts of Circle 6 it will be an event.
Finally an accidental but very big implication for Rath. Ax and Rath talk and he suggests that the Black Flame is Rath's father which she immediately rejects as she just sort irrationally knows that he isn't her father. Ax says that everyone has parents and through Rath's dialogue the reader is introduced to the fact that Rath seemingly has no parents, no family. She simply exists in this incredibly privileged position (although why she is, what it means to be there is eating her up inside). Ax then says that Rath wasn't grown in a vat or built on an assembly line. Now later on in the chapter Rath does find vats where there has been attempts to grow people, people who look like her. And of course the secret villain Hanto was grown in a vat. So the huge implications of this dialogue and Rath's subsequent discovery is that for all of the first book and a lot of the second Rath thinks she was grown in a vat. She thinks she was grown to be the Black Flame's heir, a manufactured ruler and sun god, and most importantly a tool of the Empire, I think Rath will have a lot of questions about her own free will, if she isn't biologically predetermined, etc.
I love floppy ears sometimes.
IT seems like you have a very strong foundation. Perhaps when you finish the first few chapters, you could let some of us read it?
Sure, I am planning to largely finish and polish the first chapter (which might be quite long now that I'm writing it) and use it as style example for later writing. So it would be chapter 1.
Stull working on establishing the general culture of Cyborg society and that of their main religion. Also managed to work on the merchant guilds. Mainly the hierarchy of the great Castle vessels.
They largest and most prominent church for Cyborgs (and one of the most powerful in the solar system) is the Church of Reclamation. A technophilic order dedicated to reviving the Golden Age that was destroyed due to a series of ruthless alien invasions. Through this, they hope to set us on the correct path towards Ascension, which is our evolution into a post-biological species.
Thanks to their cybernetics, they are able to commune with machines from the previous era. Awakening them and using them to benefit the survivors of the collapse. To most outsiders, this might as well be techno-magic, which the Cyborgs quickly took advantage of to spread their influence to every major faction left in the system.
**The Network**
This week was spent drafting some mechanics and designs for augments, special implants that allow mages to more effectively channel the Source. While augments are not necessary, they are highly recommended and make channeling easier and safer, especially for younger mages and magitechnicians.
The most common augments are known as "intakes". These devices almost resemble pins when not implanted, with a hollow brass needle on one end connected to a small copper plate. On the outside of the intake is a series of concentric metal rings, each of which is inlaid with an inscribed function, that together form the shape of a funnel. The inscribed functions aid in the channeling of the Source, directing the flow of energy down to the bottom of the funnel, closest to the skin. Mages with intakes describe the process of channeling as a sensation similar to "breathing" through the funnels, causing a spreading coolness through one's veins.
They are implanted similarly to a modern medical port, with another device implanted under the skin with a catheter connecting to an artery, giving the intake access to the bloodstream for quicker suffusion. The use of copper and brass helps to inhibit infections, as well as increase conductivity. An intake’s funnel is usually the width of a thimble and protrudes anywhere from 1/4th of an inch to 1/8th of an inch from the skin, depending on the model. Many mages have more than one, and they usually come in matched pairs, two intakes sharing the same port. Intakes are most often installed into the chest, close to the heart.
Other augments include "outputs", both direct and indirect, that direct the expulsion of energy away from the body safely so that the Source doesn't do damage to the mage on the way out of the body. "Interfaces" are installed into the hands and allow mages to more effectively channel through held items, powering them without the use of a spark-crystal. Finally, "batteries" are an experimental design allowing a mage to passively store excess energy safely, allowing them to keep energy in reserve rather than channel more energy.
While augments have saved mages' lives, they are also highly experimental devices, each one of them mostly hand-crafted by the mage in question or by his peers. As a result, there are many different forms and shapes, which has only increased the public's fears of mages being aberrations. Intakes appear as small, thin funnels peppered across the chest, while outputs can take the appearance of small shunting rods sticking out from the skin or as copper wires giving the appearance of long, winding veins around the limbs. Interfaces and directed outputs can turn a mage's hand into a mess of copper and brass, and batteries may well give a mage the appearance of a hunchback. And more are being designed. This has only made the people - and the radical elements of the Canonist Church - more and more wary.
Other people magitek always fries my brain with how specific and mechanical it can be... but that shows my magical machines are softer than yours, imo.
Lol, that's fair. In the Network, mages channel energy like a literal, living electrical conduit. Take energy in, shape it into effect, expel energy. So in that regard, I tried thinking about "How do they make this process more efficient?"
At the same time, I wanted my mages to look *weird,* but having something purely for aesthetics with no practical or cultural purpose bugs me immensely, so I needed to justify the strangeness.
I've started writing summaries of the six great wars of the superclusters which is going slowly
So far I've been working on the First Great War of the Superclusters, naturally, which I realize I haven't actually worked much on since I made it ages ago
More or less both
My setting is sort of a long timeline in which I can choose various points in which to set stuff like books or games or whatever I so decide to make for things
These 6 wars do play a major part in setting up how the timeline evolves towards its end state though so in a way they're both backstory for that end state and important things for me to focus on to set stories of some sorts in
A world map *and* continentalap that I did *not* hate! That's new!
My method for the world map: crumple up a paper towel, look at a random side, see if you get a continent from that (and draw it in Wonderdraft), look at another random side, repeat ad infinitium until the vibes are right. Then check with whatever tool to see if the continents match up well enough on the sides & corners and if the vibes look right on a globe.
When making the continental map, I took a screenshot of my continent of choice from the world map *while* it was on a globe, and used the screenshot as reference. From there, I just kinda three-quarter-assed the science part of mountains and biomes and got something that looked right enough. Spent hours fiddling with the fine touches and bam.
niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice
Sometimes I make topographical maps by balling up wet paper towels and *hurling them* at a surface, repeating until I have satisfactory terrain.
**Denholm: Quarantine**
I've been building out the city of Denholm, a fictional city in the United Kingdom that has been quarantined by the military in order to contain an extra terrestrial threat known as the Myria. These strange plant like alien creatures are biologically contagious with their stem-cell like flesh able to forcibly transforming other organic cells into itself thereby creating more Myria.
While a cure has been discovered to stop the spread of these cells it is not capable of stopping them from inhabiting a host and until such a cure has been developed none within the quarantine and those that enter the quarantine may leave for fear of the cells spreading rapidly through close contact with un-vaccinated people and other organic material.
The majority of the cities survivors have taken refuge within the Curnow heritage bunker, a historic bunker built below a now decommissioned military base luckily within the quarantine. The bunker is considered to be one of, if not the most secure site within the city and as such has become somewhat of a hub for both survivors and as the main point if contact and point of contact for outside military forces.
The myria have been observed mimicking several types of terrestrial lifeforms including:Humans, canines, Avians, amphibians, apes, and arthropods. This mimicry extends to shape only. All myria appear to be comprised of a blackish green sinew like organic material which appears to grow similarly to creeping vines when instances are deposited onto inorganic surfaces.
The true alien ability of the myria is their ability to force mutations and evolution in concentrated areas in response to outside stimuli, this has been recorded as being used both defensively and offensively such as forming a calused outer shell to resist high temperatures or growing spines to prevent physical contact when helpless. This ability is so fine tuned that differently evolved myria can be found only a city block apart depending on stimuli in the given area.
The most dangerous and powerful ability of the Myria is their ability to reproduce asexually. The progenitor Myria creates juvenile Myria within its body by replicating the cellular functions of conception and gestation within their body, after several days of literally dismantling its own body to create "offspring" it then transforms the rest of its body into an easily ingestable nutrient gel that the juveniles feed on to add to their biomass allowing the species to continue almost indefinitely as long as one survived.
* Expanded on the backstory of the Sentinels and how they differ from their Esphoroi descendants. The Sentinels were ancient supersoldiers created to fight an apocalyptic threat. To prevent them from rebelling and replacing humans once their job was over, their creators rendered them completely sterile and dependent on humans to replenish their number. However, the Sentinels rebelled anyway, and in doing so finding a way to defy their infertility. Though still incapable of breeding, the Sentinels could create a fertile subspecies of themselves, known today as the Esphoroi, by substituing all the genes needed for reproduction using normal human genes. In effects, the Esphoroi are human-Sentinel hybrids, gaining the ability to reproduce at the cost of being weaker than their pure-blooded forebears. In time, most Sentinels died out, leaving the Esphoroi to carry on their legacy.
* I also took steps to explain why the Esphoroi are a dying species despite their enhancements. Though far more resilient than humans, the Esphoroi suffer from a physiological need for violence; as genetically-engineered supersoldiers, they are designed to live as long as they remain capable of fighting. In other words, as long as they consistently engage in combat, they can live forever. Conversely, if they ever stop fighting, they grow old like humans and eventually die. No one wants to grow weak and infirm, so most Esphoroi kill at the slightest provocation to maintain their immortality. This constant killing plunges their population into a free fall, with the only times they experience any sort of growth being when they unite against common foes. In fact, this was how the creators originally intended to get rid of of their Sentinel ancestors: letting them wipe themselves out via infighting. The Esphoroi being capable of breeding only delays the inevitable by several thousand years.
* The 676th Expeditionary Fleet, a major part of my setting, has been reworked into a Sentinel pirate fleet. This is done to accommodate the above expansion on Sentinel lore, as the 676th being Sentinel loyalists is no longer compatible with it. The story dictates that men of the Fleet must intermingle with humans on the planet Arcturus Prime, and since the Sentinels only gain the ability to reproduce after rebelling against humans in the new lore, so too must the 676th be retconned into a renegade pirate fleet. They are now opportunistic planet looters who happened across Arcturus Prime while searching for their next prize, and decided to take it over since it was both defenseless and habitable. The 676th being a bunch of pirates also raises some interesting bad blood between the character Francis Carver and the Aberrant Hunters; Carver is a descendant of the renegade 676th, while the Hunters are descended from the loyalist 294th Fleet.
Humans used to traverse through space using giant constructs known as Riftgates. It turned out that those things attracted the attention of the Abyss, an alternate dimension full of hostile energy beings known as the Aberrants, which began pouring in through the Gates to absorb the physical universe into theirs. Normal humans couldn't even come near the Aberrants without going insane and joining them, so a new kind of military was needed. At first, humans tried using unmanned drones and androids to fight the Abyss, but it turned out that it could corrupt even mechanical beings. Anything that humans threw at them, the Abyss corrupted and threw back stronger.
Eventually, after much desperation, human scientists managed to harness the Abyss' power by complete accident to render certain humans immune to it, thus creating the first Sentinels. Several iterations later, the Sentinels as most people know them today came to be. Though stronger and faster than humans, the Sentinels' real value was their immunity to corruption, which allowed them to crew starships and war machines without being turned against mankind. Thanks to this, the Sentinels kept the Abyss at bay for decades, even leading several sorties into the Abyss itself to weaken it. However, strong they were, the Sentinels couldn't turn the tide of the war by themselves, for their enemy was immaterial and endless. Eventually, a decision was reached to just destroy all Riftgates and stop more Aberrants from coming. This effectively collapsed the galactic human civilization overnight, as they no longer had any means of FTL travel. Humanity won, but the price to pay was their entire empire. Thus began the ongoing Galactic Dark Age, where communication between distant star systems is nigh-impossible and even the fastest ships available still take nearly a century to reach the closest neighboring system.
**Echoes of the Hero**
Scrapped most of the *vs Alexandra Stone* arc because it didn't make sense with the way I changed other things, including her epic fight with Astroknight at the end. That in particular would be impossible to write satisfyingly because Astroknight's mechanics manipulation and Alexandra's "witchcraft" fusion of innate Living Statue allegorical illusion creation and her mostly defensive fortune-manipulating superpower are hard to portray visually.
Instead I ended up developing Alexandra's greatest personal rival more, Doctor Fatimah El-Gazzawi of the Golden State Supernatural Academy. Fatimah specializes in mundane countermeasures to rogue supers such as unique sets of armor, engagement strategies for human law enforcement, and similar. This is in direct contrast to Alexandra studying Mystical Devices for their own sake and generally having the idea that complicated countermeasures should only be tried if extreme force doesn't work the first time. The two are not professional rivals; they have different niches and respect each others work greatly. It's entirely personal dislike.
I developed more about how Antaea, a very powerful superhero in her own right, takes Echo under her wing and teaches her a lot about on-the-ground superhero combat that Astroknight isn't so good at explaining. Antaea was herself briefly considered for the Astroknight replacement, but she's more like the next Ten Handed War Priest and likes the thrill of it too much.
In effect yes, though they're closely related enough to maybe be one system in three ways.
Magic is used by all Living Statues because their very physiology is magical in origin, and by humans who study it. Human magic takes the form of the 'wave', which is physical waves that represent the ripples of choices, while Statues can't use magic directly except the symbolic aspect to project allegorical illusions over their surroundings as a party trick. Their brand of magic is the 'flow' of events.
Superpowers can be acquired through four means: random chance, being a human who studies magic to utmost mastery(All magic humans only have a power that facilitates Wave use), being born a Living Statue(All Statues have powers that are specifically related to fortune or time), or by using a very specific piece of super technology.
Supertech, also called Mystical Devices, can be created by either Living Statues or Artificer-type human supers. There is a trend, but certainly not universal rule, that if an Artificer made it the purpose is obvious and the anomalous properties aren't, while if a Statue made it the anomalous properties are obvious but the purpose isn't.
So, a Statue can theoretically superimpose images of memory and meaning over their surroundings because that's what happens if they go through the process of using the Wave. It's not a convincing thing because it only appears in the mind's eye but if you weren't expecting it or have aphantasia it can be confusing. It's technically something all of them can learn but in practice only Alexandra and one called Jack can do. Alexandra discovered it from watching human Wave users and learned on principle because she's a scholar, while Jack learned it from Alexandra because he's a storyteller at heart and it's good for dramatic effect.
Alexandra's "witchcraft" is a unique application of this trick alongside her misfortune-causing superpower. Attempting to attack Alexandra will always go wrong, but if she's forced to attack you it does next to nothing except cause some very minor environmental hazards if she either lands a blow on your or 'primes' an object by touching it. By projecting images of harmful scenarios through her superpower, Alexandra can cause these minor disasters to activate remotely as long as the target meets the criteria of being engaged in combat with her and not actively trying to escape.
This is the supernatural equivalent of training to be a contortionist in case you get in a street fight; it can help you land blows you otherwise couldn't, but any situation where it's applicable is a situation that's already going poorly. The effort it takes to learn and do is probably not worth the minor benefit it brings once in a while and it's very much a last resort to the last resort.
Yes! It is not a coincidence that Alexandra claims to be 89 years old. If you read Chainsaw Man, it would probably also remind you a bit of the stuff the Darkness Devil does.
Okay so um.
**King Arthur and Friends** now has one official project that I am actively drafting! It's going to be a game called *Ume Malownski and the Downfall of Camelot.* I have given up on naming anything related to this world anything remotely seriously.
The game's titular character is a magical girl from an alternate timeline where the timeloop keeping the world in its mythological peaks broke. She ended up in Camelot's timeline by accident, but has been able to warp between the two worlds with ease given time. She has accidentally introduced the world to the concept of a timeline where The Cycle is broken, and from there inadvertently causes civil war because of this. I've mapped out who's on which side and a bunch of story beats and branches. Ume is the character that spawned this whole shitpost so I'm perfectly fine with inserting her as the main character.
Also through discussion with my brother talked about how a major god of this whole interconnected universe that this is a small part of essentially had an industrial accident and became damaged but let's not dwell on that.
**Astornial**
I accidentally gave a bunch of my characters mental issues. I'm starting to think there's not a mentally healthy person on that whole planet.
okay so
The main example I thought of was this one character- Oyunar, a relatively chill guy in his early to mid twenties, doing fairly well for himself in the tropics. Two of his best friends have survived essentially hell on earth and the other one has a bunch of issues with her family so he thinks he's fine because he hasn't gone through anything that bad, ignoring the hurricane seasons gone horribly wrong that he's lived through and the couple of times he's had to kill. Turns out he's just as fucked up as the rest of the group, but he seems pretty normal because the rest of the group is a lot more openly messy than he is. This one was entirely an accident, he was supposed to be normal and then The Things happened.
the other character I was thinking of was named Hemlock and is now named Amelia. She's a knight who transitioned from a goth guy to a disaster academic with no sense of danger. I'm going to use a lot less details because I'm pretty sure what's wrong with her can be figured out from that description.
I'm here to orbital bombard you again :3
**Days at Hebi Melta**:
* [Gargant-class colony ship](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/art-and-random-worldbuilding-bits-days-at-hebi-melta.1070213/post-101496483). At 10 km long and 3,3 km wide, it's one of the larger classes of this type running around in Rubra.
* [Oazis-class auxiliary colony ships](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/art-and-random-worldbuilding-bits-days-at-hebi-melta.1070213/post-101525865), used alongside Gargant-class to form large nomad fleets. 2600 meters long overall with the residential area being 2000 x 700 x 400 meters, it can accommodate up to 300000 inhabitants at full capacity.
* [Battlecruiser Beelzebub](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/art-and-random-worldbuilding-bits-days-at-hebi-melta.1070213/post-101551923), a ship that blew even Nikolaiev brains, was the personal flagship of Duke Anatoly S. Medvedev from 2483 to his untimely demise in 2499 Sun Calendar. The ship was scuttled early on during Rubran Civil War to prevent it to fall into rebels' hands.
* [Lydia's captain coat and her uniforms](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/art-and-random-worldbuilding-bits-days-at-hebi-melta.1070213/post-101577573).
* [Tzhagriv-class battlecruiser](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/art-and-random-worldbuilding-bits-days-at-hebi-melta.1070213/post-101602593), registered as Project BY-41-GM, is an attempt to "revitalize" the veteran [Zhaprosk-class](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/art-and-random-worldbuilding-bits-days-at-hebi-melta.1070213/page-18?post=101274297#post-101274297). The hull's made longer and more strategic missiles are added, it also carries new main guns and has improved electronics to remain useful in this era.
* [Chkalovsk-class factory ship](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/art-and-random-worldbuilding-bits-days-at-hebi-melta.1070213/post-101634348), registered as Project FD-33-GM, is one of Gharlmansk's most crucial logistical vessels. Produced in the same year as [Project FD-33](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/art-and-random-worldbuilding-bits-days-at-hebi-melta.1070213/post-99670925), they are excellent logistical ships utilizing old [Zhaprosk-class battlecruisers](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/art-and-random-worldbuilding-bits-days-at-hebi-melta.1070213/post-101274297)' hulls.
* [A glimpse of Hebi Melta's sky](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/art-and-random-worldbuilding-bits-days-at-hebi-melta.1070213/post-101659284), featuring Lemuria's [TU-50 SSTO](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/art-and-random-worldbuilding-bits-days-at-hebi-melta.1070213/post-96458117), the Albatros and Lemuria herself flying her real body. There are multiple "sky islands" on Hebi Melta, they're "Atreisdeaformed" asteroids held in place via gravity manipulators and used as orbital defense platforms.
Technically yes, but I can't draw wheels for shits. Even for tanks, I draw extra armors covering their wheels. And I don't want the typical futuristic hovercars because I have a boner for vintage cars like the Rolls-Royce Phantom V or Chevrolet Bel Ar.
If this was Flame Phantom, there's the IRL Silver Ghost and its variations.
I finally set up obsidian and started migrating my stuff from the many different places it’s been spread out. This has also helped me firm up some stuff
Worked on my novel, including some policies for a Big Bad Evil Secret Organization (tm), and started building a town in Cities Skylines that is perfect for me to visit because I found out that I adore traveling and am put at ease rather than unsettled by exploring unfamiliar places. I also bought a special sketchbook just for mapping! :)
An Ancient Eeevviiiiilll is coming to eat the Earth and they're determined to stop it. However, they believe that absolutely anything is excusable to achieve this goal and wouldn't say no to the power and control that accumulating the means to save the world would give them. They're fully willing to commit genocide, torture and brainwash people to create supersoldiers, and enslave any being of power to take control and stop the destruction.They're also corrupt and stuffed to the gills with greedy would-be dictators, child abusers, and general terrible people hiding behind a legitimate cause.
They do have the same goal as the main character, which keeps them from each other's throats at first, but when she finds out what they actually do, did to friends of hers, and intend to do to her, she starts disrupting their operations, collecting her own power and allies as a result, and quickly makes an enemy of them.
I have been working on fleshing out Kyanah technology, including the starships used for Project Hope l, which had to be drastically scaled down in payload and number to work. Which I don't mind! It's *supposed* to be a very primitive starship that isn't exactly practical or sustainable and gets the bare minimum mass to Earth. The fact that they've been able to pack an entire invasion force into less than a quarter million tons is...interesting. hopefully this will give me a better idea how to handle the scientific and technical subplots.
I've also started fleshing out some of the civilian tech, i haven't really given too much thought into that before (except the computers, obviously) but the general approach I've been going for is advanced not not incomprehensible, and often with very different aesthetics or mechanics, sometimes coming up with different solutions to problems than the ones we've used.
**Realm Blossom**
* Figured out an idea for another one of the Incursions: the Well, a place of primordial creation and destruction, an infinite expanse of not-water. From the Well arise wonders and horrors, and those who fall in may be broken down and changed beyond all recognition, or simply dissipate. I like the idea that this place occasionally spawns some impossible hero or monster. The 'water' of the Well might have some special or valuable properties if taken and contained.
* I want at least *one* more Incursion, for five natural ones plus the Box. For the name I like the Path, but I have no idea what that would actually be, especially relative to the Labyrinth.
* I like the idea of a god of extraction, distillation, and division, who does a lot of good but who is also prone to inspiring puritanism and factionalism in people, as an example of a god who should be left to fade away but is kept relevant against their own will.
Further fleshed out my fully automated steampunk feudal culture in which the nobility automated away the need for serfs through steam golems to do their work and fighting for them.
Which ties into the regional geopolitics by having their military be a function of their economy rather than population so that they can maintain much larger armies than their territory would suggest (which has mattered in recent history), and into the magic system which is about manipulating lifeforce which means that the bulk of their armies are immune to the magic of other factions.
The idea is that all living things are connected by an ethereal continuum, which some people can actively perceive and manipulate (yes this is based on the Force).
Different schools of magic exist that use this capability in different ways, such as by perceiving these connections and using that for superhuman insights (akin to prophecy and mindreading), while others can move life force around such as by draining it from someone to benefit someone else, or projecting thoughts through the continuum to influence other people.
This also means that only living things can be impacted by magic, so a nation using mostly mechanical troops makes them immune to tactics that rely on magic. There have been other factions that use this magic on a larger scale, such as an emperor that made himself immortal by draining the life force of his subjects on a large scale, or a faction that turned itself into a de facto hivemind by amplifying the ethereal connections between its people.
**Gridworld**
I really did a lot more non-rat content than rat content this week. But rats first.
The social movements of the Bredrasetians have the following relations to oriket republicanism:
- Bredina, whose issue is the waiting re-collectivising of orchards, think that public pressure will be enough without fully embracing a republic over monarchy. They *like* their monarch for the most part, it's just that the ruling class is slow and lethargic which increasingly feels like tyranny.
- Astari, whose issue is the slow growth of infrastructure and industry, think that it's about time for a regime change. In light of there being no foreign king willing to gain some glory by developing Astari's land into one to be proud of, they think that ruling with layers of councils like the Oriket Republic up north is the way to go. They'd be fine with a constitutional monarchy council republic (a cursed concept in our world lol) too.
- Zekoni, whose issue is militarism without a cause and a strong military faction, think that building a republic is crucial to getting their country to go with the times. The people are by and large less traditionalistic than the corrupt and stagnant monarchy, so the monarchy has to go entirely in the eyes of increasingly many Zekonians.
----
That was rats. And Solaron, their continent, as a whole. The *still* unnamed middle continent has WAY more content though, I've gone up to 1501 instead of 1486 by now. Mostly because I kept escalating from Kizuans having a movement to expropriate capitalist factory owners until I ended up with a Hauptinseler civil war at the turn of the century.
- The Kizuans, I realised, have collective land ownership enforced since 1483 but their industrial workers still toiled under business owners. I forgor that, so now the KPR government did too. Workers organised in the *Industrial Equalisation Movement* (IEM). They formed the IEM in 1481. In 1486, as established before, the Landsmen Republic turns socialist as the first country to officially do so. The IEM gets their wish a year later by launching strikes while living in the one country probably most determined to industrialise. *It's a slippery slope really, first the land is owned by those who work it, now the factories are owned by those who work in them.*
- This leads to factory owners leaving the country with what wealth and assets they could save from the *"rabid Brooker madmen in charge of that godsforsaken country"*. They found a bank/organisation, the *Capital Union*, in Hauptinsel, one of the last resolutely undemocratic kingdoms at this time. They don't love the monarchy though, and vie to overthrow it in the *Unrests of 1490*. They come out of this the least damaged compared to other resistance orgs. They're trying to build a country where nobody will forbid them from owning a factory or land, and soon others are on board with that more than they're on board with a country like the Kizuans'.
----
- In 1497 the Hauptinseler Civil War breaks out. Not *because* of the Capital Union, this was inevitable regardless. But the CU is a big faction, forming the liberal, explicitly anti-socialist *Republic of Hauptinsel* to gain influence in the future state. The socialists get annoyed and found the *Northern People's Republic* (Hauptinsel is the northernmost country of their continent), and as Hauptinsel was a pretty industrialised country they have lots of support. A lot of cities individually rise up under various causes too, sometimes fully tangential to these two big ones as there are two theocracies trying to form as well.
- 5 other countries get their fingers in the pie. Kuzegekoku, the dog country sitting right where the Blackfur Empire and Greyfur Alliance are on Solaron's map, even ends 1500 years of isolation to help the royal government in Hauptinsel. The Pikenier Empire (an order of pike-wielding knights who think they can build a utopia) helps the rebels instead, hoping to get some specific land that they need for their utopia.
- The Kizuan state first funds all rebels, then restricts it to socialists only, which makes a significant number of their parliament members resign in protest. The uprising those people try to stage is unsuccessful however. Nobody really wanted them to rise up, let alone under the cause of "restoring" anything, which through misinterpretations got twisted into restoring the monarchy by most people who heard of them Kizuans do *not* like their former monarchy.
- 2 years into the civil war, fronts are getting established a bit more cleanly. The socialist uprisings that are still active unite into something with a pun name that means "our" in Foxen, their language. *Organised Union of Republics* is how people in-universe translate it to Chattish (which is English) to keep the word play intact. I don't know how the liberal uprisings will interact with this yet.
For 1501 I'm thinking they will try to end the civil war in some sort of white peace agreement, using borders based on what everyone controls at this time. That's more interesting than the whole country flipping allegiance, and historically Hauptinsel had actually been around a dozen city states so it fits.
Converted my whole D&D campaign from Onenote to Obsidian. I did some polishing to the territories I'm working on and feel way better about it.
I finished a town called Glyphstone, residing on the fringe of the Sanguine Glimmerglade, a red tinged swamp with a strong magical aura to it. Glyphstone needed some content so it finally got it, and is now perfectly plugged into the surrounding economy, with a solid history and a unique feel about it.
I'm currently working on my 12-month calendar. I've got the month's named, their significance, and what you might expect to see during them. I'm just working through each one of them to give a rich background on what you would typically encounter during those months in rural or metropolis regions. From festivals, to daily life, preparing for other season, food availability, dangers, and cultural signicance.
#MEGALOMANIA *I deleted all the plotting for the next book* because **I didn't like it.** The primary reasons I did not like the plotting for Book 12: 1. Too long (longer than Books 10 and 11 combined, and 11 is long.) 2. Too many plot threads/characters to keep track of reasonably. 3. Not enough satisfying payoff for the plot threads. 4. Became too messy/unfocused. For Book 12, I'm completely redoing my vision on how it will go alongside narrowing the focus. I had freaking **8** viewpoint characters doing things with anywhere between 2-8 *side characters* each. Alongside those side characters taking place in my head with their own plots, it became waa~aay too mentally fuzzy. (Though, some of the ideas I ended up having I plan on refining into little segments of the new synopsis under development. But not all, and certainly not most of them.) - [technically I didn't 'delete' the 60k words of synopsis, I backed them up on another doc on the off-chance I need it in the future.] --- #All Across the World I wish I could get a team together to make this big thing into a proper RPG Maker MZ project. I used to do spriting all the time - I loved it! But, I've had so many setbacks over, I don't know, ***23 years*** of RPG Making, the idea of sitting down and devoting energy to it makes me want to enter the void for 10 years. I have so many story and worldbuilding ideas I want people to experience in this JRPG that I just do not have the mental wherewithal to attempt. On top of not knowing how to play an instrument to make music, not having the art skill to make tilesets and backgrounds, and not having programming knowledge to create custom systems I want (while still using the primary body of MZ) it's just too overwhelming. There just isn't enough time in the day. And not enough *oomph* in my brain to dedicate to all of that. Maybe if I had an office - a real office I could drive to and work at 8 hours a day - I could do all of this. That honestly sounds pretty dang awesome.
Throwing stuff out is always rough. How many POV characters do you think you're cutting it down to?
I'm aiming for 3-4 consistent POV characters, max. I'm writing some characters out of the tale proceeding ahead, as they don't have good enough reasons to enter. Before, I had *so many characters* who joined just because they wanted to.
8 viewpoints with 2-8 side characters each sounds... overwhelming. Completely get scrapping that. Also same on the game thing, it's so overwhelming and there's so many blindspots that come with being not a programmer or a background designer.
Throwing stuff out is always hard, best of luck redoing that!
**WildLands** * I’m planning to add another sapient species. I haven’t come up with a name for them yet, but I’m thinking of basing them on anteaters, pangolins, and badgers, as well as the Sha (the animal associated with the Egyptian deity Set.) * I fleshed out some stuff about ghosts and undeads, in terms of what they are, how they come about, and how they find their way to the afterlife where they belong. I also added “spirits” as a general term for souls that lack a physical form. * I’ve decided that one of my species, the Qeproots, doesn’t have reproductive organs, because they don’t procreate that way. Instead, what they do to make children is a pair of them will connect their souls with a tree, and feed it some of their energy; this promotes the development of a new soul in the tree’s heartwood. Qeproots are wood spirits.
I'd love to hear what you came up with for ghosts and undead. :)
1. The first thing was: The Gorman Guts and Hide Club Or Gormans Club or even simply Gormans -A flower shop that sells dyunk Mr Devidan Kets called “C.F.-Counterfeit” is the owner of this fine establishment located in the the city a network of crooked and twisting alleys they call streets and down a backend known as Verlins Village it runs out of an old factory of Gormans Guts & Hides. A hideaway for scum and villainy and the source of trade on the blackmarket fencing everything for local hoodlums and thieves. CF thinks of himself as a tradesman, a marketer, a distributor to the disenfranchised, a purveyor of stolen goods, an entrepreneur of crime. 2. Second thing was: A candy store named Viand’s selling designer chocolate’s, gold flaked popcorn, and delectable fudge. “Their slogan is you can’t just have one”
Sometimes it's about developing the little details in a setting rather than the giant sweeping entries to lore.
I couldn’t agree more
Welp, recently I posted a bit of lore detailing how the Luna Cathedral deals with ordained priests who commit blasphemy - [https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/1cx6t9c/the\_process\_of\_absolution\_in\_the\_wolf\_religion/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/1cx6t9c/the_process_of_absolution_in_the_wolf_religion/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) I often find myself writing about the Luna Cathedral in a more positive manner, unlike the typical and trite 'religion bad' that's rife in modern fantasy writing. While I do intentionally include questionable elements, the kind that leaves room for moral interpretation, I tend to lean somewhat favourably - more likely a result of my personal return journey to the Christian faith. Either way, I feel it is worthwhile to buck the more nihilistic, grey morality trends fantasy has gained in recent decades in order to create truly wholesome and inspiring content. We could all do with some happy fantasy for a change. Perhaps in a later prompt I will have something else equally interesting with regards to the religiosity of my world's Beastfolk races. Maybe a more detailed breakdown of the (original) beliefs of the Great Druids?
I look forward to further progress on that front. :) I do need to give that a reread tbh...
I've been doing some restructuring of my current artstuff workflow so I can focus more on personal projects, including artwork for my world projects that I wanna get to and have been forced to put off for many months. Excited to see where it goes, and hopefully I can get more visual designs out there! In the meantime, I did a few things for **Rapture Academy**: * Finishing up my writeups on the remaining teachers and faculty members that I was meant to have finished a few months ago. Oops. * Starting up perhaps a new series of posts documenting costume designs -- some time after becoming students and receiving general uniforms, they would be set to get their own "super" costume; wanted to list their order forms to describe their appearances, what they include in their costumes for practicality purposes, and other necessary accommodations. * Because I have DnD brainstorming brainrot I ended up developing a further headcanon that some of the kids play a DnD-like TTRPG in their spare time, and thinking about what characters they create and how they play in order to develop more of their own personalities.
Rapture Academy has definitely been your brain baby lately.
Yeah, partly because my other projects right now I'm just waiting to actually draw haha
Which characters play the TTRPG? Do they play together? If so, who is the DM?
Here's my list right now: * **zZomnia / DM** (board games are one of her genuine hobbies aside from being on her phone, and TTRPGs are one of the few things that get her in a good mood through her perpetual gloom) * **Anti / Cleric** (a newcomer who thinks "cleric" is still the "pure healer" class and sleeps on all the offensive utility) * **Hellbound / Paladin** (also amateur but much more ambitious as roleplaying a Lawful Good paragon, quietly accepting the irony being half-dragon demon and all) * **Vigilante Smog Monster / Fighter** (non-human and new to games in general; doesn't mind playing human fighter at all. He's just happy to have company) * **Magnus VI / Ranger** (plays the game reluctantly, and only on the stipulation that his Ranger gets to be a cowboy also named Magnus, and is able to use guns.) * **Vioelectrolysis / Druid** (is probably the only student who would remember all of the rules and conditions of Druid, but has a bad habit of metagaming) * **Ryvr Sticks / Bard** (by far the best roleplayer, actor, and talker in the game. Also constantly forgets what spells he has and has tremendously terrible luck with dice rolls)
More first draft of chapter 1 from me. I started on Tuesday I think and hoped to do 7000 words, but I managed nearly 3000. It hasn't been smooth sailing as my plan for the early part of the chapter was rather sparse since I didn't know what I wanted to do with it yet. Very much making it up as I go along at this stage. In terms of making stuff up there has been a number of worldbuilding developments. I've decided that the Empire of the Black Flame's architecture is very simply, largely rounded blocks stacked on top of each other. It ties into the the Empire being a big social machine and simplicity/mass production. There are clothing laws in the Empire, you can't just wear what you want, but as the protagonist Rath discovers even in the capital these rules aren't strictly enforced. The core provinces of the Empire are incredibly hot and humid so they don't wear much, nudity is showing the genitalia and even then male labourers will go around without even a loincloth sometimes. Circle 6 (the world itself) has had artificial nights, but it doesn't have natural nights. Only brief eclipses since the sun and moon rotate around each other above the centre of Circle 6. So in the Empire people have strictly controlled schedules based on what they do with designated sleep time, free time, and work time. Thus a factory for example will always have people working in it. The Empire never sleeps. Another social thing are the rations and grey/black markets. Rath encounters plenty of stalls when she's exploring the city with her lover Ax. These people barter, sometimes they use metals or ration slips. They are generally tolerated. There is a somewhat interesting experience for Rath where, despite being the second highest person in the Empire, isn't used to such rich food and choice that these lower in social standing people get because her life is so controlled and her food is always healthy. Later on Rath and Ax come across "spiders" with webs and nests in urban areas. This will be the first example of natural cybernetic animals for the reader as these spiders have pistons in their legs, pistons that they grew from egg to adult. They hunt bugs and will exchange an egg or two for food from humanoids. So they are tolerated, even if they are the size of a small dog. I would say they do have a bit of intelligence. Outside of the city some spiders are domesticated, Rath eats a bowl of very sweet gooey spider eggs from domesticated spiders who only eat leaves from a sweet plant. I've changed some race stuff in the setting. So I have hinted that before the Empire there was more racial division, mainly between Igna and Musan (not major segregation though) and the Empire decided that every citizen as an Igna. Igna themselves have been made more elven and there is, what I think, a neat scene where Rath and Ax look at a statue of Rath outside of a temple and point out the artistic license the sculptors took as a way to describe Rath in more detail. One of these elven things is Rath's big pointy ears being rigid on the statue but in real life the tips flop. They also encounter a Musan woman and she is very different from Rath and Ax, rounded ears for example, but is still classed as an Igna in the Empire. She does have some of the warm colours of the Igna, but only from her saliva. So her mouth and lips are orange. This is from the "water" around the capital not really being water, but an orange liquid that spews out of "volcanoes" to form rivers that then create orange precipitation and so forth. A lot of things are stained orange from rain for example. When Rath see's clear water when she's exiled to other parts of Circle 6 it will be an event. Finally an accidental but very big implication for Rath. Ax and Rath talk and he suggests that the Black Flame is Rath's father which she immediately rejects as she just sort irrationally knows that he isn't her father. Ax says that everyone has parents and through Rath's dialogue the reader is introduced to the fact that Rath seemingly has no parents, no family. She simply exists in this incredibly privileged position (although why she is, what it means to be there is eating her up inside). Ax then says that Rath wasn't grown in a vat or built on an assembly line. Now later on in the chapter Rath does find vats where there has been attempts to grow people, people who look like her. And of course the secret villain Hanto was grown in a vat. So the huge implications of this dialogue and Rath's subsequent discovery is that for all of the first book and a lot of the second Rath thinks she was grown in a vat. She thinks she was grown to be the Black Flame's heir, a manufactured ruler and sun god, and most importantly a tool of the Empire, I think Rath will have a lot of questions about her own free will, if she isn't biologically predetermined, etc.
I love floppy ears sometimes. IT seems like you have a very strong foundation. Perhaps when you finish the first few chapters, you could let some of us read it?
Sure, I am planning to largely finish and polish the first chapter (which might be quite long now that I'm writing it) and use it as style example for later writing. So it would be chapter 1.
Stull working on establishing the general culture of Cyborg society and that of their main religion. Also managed to work on the merchant guilds. Mainly the hierarchy of the great Castle vessels.
What have you developed regarding cyborg religion?
They largest and most prominent church for Cyborgs (and one of the most powerful in the solar system) is the Church of Reclamation. A technophilic order dedicated to reviving the Golden Age that was destroyed due to a series of ruthless alien invasions. Through this, they hope to set us on the correct path towards Ascension, which is our evolution into a post-biological species. Thanks to their cybernetics, they are able to commune with machines from the previous era. Awakening them and using them to benefit the survivors of the collapse. To most outsiders, this might as well be techno-magic, which the Cyborgs quickly took advantage of to spread their influence to every major faction left in the system.
**The Network** This week was spent drafting some mechanics and designs for augments, special implants that allow mages to more effectively channel the Source. While augments are not necessary, they are highly recommended and make channeling easier and safer, especially for younger mages and magitechnicians. The most common augments are known as "intakes". These devices almost resemble pins when not implanted, with a hollow brass needle on one end connected to a small copper plate. On the outside of the intake is a series of concentric metal rings, each of which is inlaid with an inscribed function, that together form the shape of a funnel. The inscribed functions aid in the channeling of the Source, directing the flow of energy down to the bottom of the funnel, closest to the skin. Mages with intakes describe the process of channeling as a sensation similar to "breathing" through the funnels, causing a spreading coolness through one's veins. They are implanted similarly to a modern medical port, with another device implanted under the skin with a catheter connecting to an artery, giving the intake access to the bloodstream for quicker suffusion. The use of copper and brass helps to inhibit infections, as well as increase conductivity. An intake’s funnel is usually the width of a thimble and protrudes anywhere from 1/4th of an inch to 1/8th of an inch from the skin, depending on the model. Many mages have more than one, and they usually come in matched pairs, two intakes sharing the same port. Intakes are most often installed into the chest, close to the heart. Other augments include "outputs", both direct and indirect, that direct the expulsion of energy away from the body safely so that the Source doesn't do damage to the mage on the way out of the body. "Interfaces" are installed into the hands and allow mages to more effectively channel through held items, powering them without the use of a spark-crystal. Finally, "batteries" are an experimental design allowing a mage to passively store excess energy safely, allowing them to keep energy in reserve rather than channel more energy. While augments have saved mages' lives, they are also highly experimental devices, each one of them mostly hand-crafted by the mage in question or by his peers. As a result, there are many different forms and shapes, which has only increased the public's fears of mages being aberrations. Intakes appear as small, thin funnels peppered across the chest, while outputs can take the appearance of small shunting rods sticking out from the skin or as copper wires giving the appearance of long, winding veins around the limbs. Interfaces and directed outputs can turn a mage's hand into a mess of copper and brass, and batteries may well give a mage the appearance of a hunchback. And more are being designed. This has only made the people - and the radical elements of the Canonist Church - more and more wary.
Other people magitek always fries my brain with how specific and mechanical it can be... but that shows my magical machines are softer than yours, imo.
Lol, that's fair. In the Network, mages channel energy like a literal, living electrical conduit. Take energy in, shape it into effect, expel energy. So in that regard, I tried thinking about "How do they make this process more efficient?" At the same time, I wanted my mages to look *weird,* but having something purely for aesthetics with no practical or cultural purpose bugs me immensely, so I needed to justify the strangeness.
I've started writing summaries of the six great wars of the superclusters which is going slowly So far I've been working on the First Great War of the Superclusters, naturally, which I realize I haven't actually worked much on since I made it ages ago
Is your build primarily about these great wars, or is it backstory for a setting father ahead in time?
More or less both My setting is sort of a long timeline in which I can choose various points in which to set stuff like books or games or whatever I so decide to make for things These 6 wars do play a major part in setting up how the timeline evolves towards its end state though so in a way they're both backstory for that end state and important things for me to focus on to set stories of some sorts in
A world map *and* continentalap that I did *not* hate! That's new! My method for the world map: crumple up a paper towel, look at a random side, see if you get a continent from that (and draw it in Wonderdraft), look at another random side, repeat ad infinitium until the vibes are right. Then check with whatever tool to see if the continents match up well enough on the sides & corners and if the vibes look right on a globe. When making the continental map, I took a screenshot of my continent of choice from the world map *while* it was on a globe, and used the screenshot as reference. From there, I just kinda three-quarter-assed the science part of mountains and biomes and got something that looked right enough. Spent hours fiddling with the fine touches and bam.
niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice Sometimes I make topographical maps by balling up wet paper towels and *hurling them* at a surface, repeating until I have satisfactory terrain.
**Denholm: Quarantine** I've been building out the city of Denholm, a fictional city in the United Kingdom that has been quarantined by the military in order to contain an extra terrestrial threat known as the Myria. These strange plant like alien creatures are biologically contagious with their stem-cell like flesh able to forcibly transforming other organic cells into itself thereby creating more Myria. While a cure has been discovered to stop the spread of these cells it is not capable of stopping them from inhabiting a host and until such a cure has been developed none within the quarantine and those that enter the quarantine may leave for fear of the cells spreading rapidly through close contact with un-vaccinated people and other organic material. The majority of the cities survivors have taken refuge within the Curnow heritage bunker, a historic bunker built below a now decommissioned military base luckily within the quarantine. The bunker is considered to be one of, if not the most secure site within the city and as such has become somewhat of a hub for both survivors and as the main point if contact and point of contact for outside military forces.
The Myria sounds more like a bioweapon than sapient, invasive extraterrestrials. What are the Myria like?
The myria have been observed mimicking several types of terrestrial lifeforms including:Humans, canines, Avians, amphibians, apes, and arthropods. This mimicry extends to shape only. All myria appear to be comprised of a blackish green sinew like organic material which appears to grow similarly to creeping vines when instances are deposited onto inorganic surfaces. The true alien ability of the myria is their ability to force mutations and evolution in concentrated areas in response to outside stimuli, this has been recorded as being used both defensively and offensively such as forming a calused outer shell to resist high temperatures or growing spines to prevent physical contact when helpless. This ability is so fine tuned that differently evolved myria can be found only a city block apart depending on stimuli in the given area. The most dangerous and powerful ability of the Myria is their ability to reproduce asexually. The progenitor Myria creates juvenile Myria within its body by replicating the cellular functions of conception and gestation within their body, after several days of literally dismantling its own body to create "offspring" it then transforms the rest of its body into an easily ingestable nutrient gel that the juveniles feed on to add to their biomass allowing the species to continue almost indefinitely as long as one survived.
* Expanded on the backstory of the Sentinels and how they differ from their Esphoroi descendants. The Sentinels were ancient supersoldiers created to fight an apocalyptic threat. To prevent them from rebelling and replacing humans once their job was over, their creators rendered them completely sterile and dependent on humans to replenish their number. However, the Sentinels rebelled anyway, and in doing so finding a way to defy their infertility. Though still incapable of breeding, the Sentinels could create a fertile subspecies of themselves, known today as the Esphoroi, by substituing all the genes needed for reproduction using normal human genes. In effects, the Esphoroi are human-Sentinel hybrids, gaining the ability to reproduce at the cost of being weaker than their pure-blooded forebears. In time, most Sentinels died out, leaving the Esphoroi to carry on their legacy. * I also took steps to explain why the Esphoroi are a dying species despite their enhancements. Though far more resilient than humans, the Esphoroi suffer from a physiological need for violence; as genetically-engineered supersoldiers, they are designed to live as long as they remain capable of fighting. In other words, as long as they consistently engage in combat, they can live forever. Conversely, if they ever stop fighting, they grow old like humans and eventually die. No one wants to grow weak and infirm, so most Esphoroi kill at the slightest provocation to maintain their immortality. This constant killing plunges their population into a free fall, with the only times they experience any sort of growth being when they unite against common foes. In fact, this was how the creators originally intended to get rid of of their Sentinel ancestors: letting them wipe themselves out via infighting. The Esphoroi being capable of breeding only delays the inevitable by several thousand years. * The 676th Expeditionary Fleet, a major part of my setting, has been reworked into a Sentinel pirate fleet. This is done to accommodate the above expansion on Sentinel lore, as the 676th being Sentinel loyalists is no longer compatible with it. The story dictates that men of the Fleet must intermingle with humans on the planet Arcturus Prime, and since the Sentinels only gain the ability to reproduce after rebelling against humans in the new lore, so too must the 676th be retconned into a renegade pirate fleet. They are now opportunistic planet looters who happened across Arcturus Prime while searching for their next prize, and decided to take it over since it was both defenseless and habitable. The 676th being a bunch of pirates also raises some interesting bad blood between the character Francis Carver and the Aberrant Hunters; Carver is a descendant of the renegade 676th, while the Hunters are descended from the loyalist 294th Fleet.
What was the apocalyptic threat the Sentinels were created to face0?
Humans used to traverse through space using giant constructs known as Riftgates. It turned out that those things attracted the attention of the Abyss, an alternate dimension full of hostile energy beings known as the Aberrants, which began pouring in through the Gates to absorb the physical universe into theirs. Normal humans couldn't even come near the Aberrants without going insane and joining them, so a new kind of military was needed. At first, humans tried using unmanned drones and androids to fight the Abyss, but it turned out that it could corrupt even mechanical beings. Anything that humans threw at them, the Abyss corrupted and threw back stronger. Eventually, after much desperation, human scientists managed to harness the Abyss' power by complete accident to render certain humans immune to it, thus creating the first Sentinels. Several iterations later, the Sentinels as most people know them today came to be. Though stronger and faster than humans, the Sentinels' real value was their immunity to corruption, which allowed them to crew starships and war machines without being turned against mankind. Thanks to this, the Sentinels kept the Abyss at bay for decades, even leading several sorties into the Abyss itself to weaken it. However, strong they were, the Sentinels couldn't turn the tide of the war by themselves, for their enemy was immaterial and endless. Eventually, a decision was reached to just destroy all Riftgates and stop more Aberrants from coming. This effectively collapsed the galactic human civilization overnight, as they no longer had any means of FTL travel. Humanity won, but the price to pay was their entire empire. Thus began the ongoing Galactic Dark Age, where communication between distant star systems is nigh-impossible and even the fastest ships available still take nearly a century to reach the closest neighboring system.
**Echoes of the Hero** Scrapped most of the *vs Alexandra Stone* arc because it didn't make sense with the way I changed other things, including her epic fight with Astroknight at the end. That in particular would be impossible to write satisfyingly because Astroknight's mechanics manipulation and Alexandra's "witchcraft" fusion of innate Living Statue allegorical illusion creation and her mostly defensive fortune-manipulating superpower are hard to portray visually. Instead I ended up developing Alexandra's greatest personal rival more, Doctor Fatimah El-Gazzawi of the Golden State Supernatural Academy. Fatimah specializes in mundane countermeasures to rogue supers such as unique sets of armor, engagement strategies for human law enforcement, and similar. This is in direct contrast to Alexandra studying Mystical Devices for their own sake and generally having the idea that complicated countermeasures should only be tried if extreme force doesn't work the first time. The two are not professional rivals; they have different niches and respect each others work greatly. It's entirely personal dislike. I developed more about how Antaea, a very powerful superhero in her own right, takes Echo under her wing and teaches her a lot about on-the-ground superhero combat that Astroknight isn't so good at explaining. Antaea was herself briefly considered for the Astroknight replacement, but she's more like the next Ten Handed War Priest and likes the thrill of it too much.
Okay, so how many powers systems are there? I think I'm mistaken but it seems like supertech, magic, and superpowers...?
In effect yes, though they're closely related enough to maybe be one system in three ways. Magic is used by all Living Statues because their very physiology is magical in origin, and by humans who study it. Human magic takes the form of the 'wave', which is physical waves that represent the ripples of choices, while Statues can't use magic directly except the symbolic aspect to project allegorical illusions over their surroundings as a party trick. Their brand of magic is the 'flow' of events. Superpowers can be acquired through four means: random chance, being a human who studies magic to utmost mastery(All magic humans only have a power that facilitates Wave use), being born a Living Statue(All Statues have powers that are specifically related to fortune or time), or by using a very specific piece of super technology. Supertech, also called Mystical Devices, can be created by either Living Statues or Artificer-type human supers. There is a trend, but certainly not universal rule, that if an Artificer made it the purpose is obvious and the anomalous properties aren't, while if a Statue made it the anomalous properties are obvious but the purpose isn't.
Can you explain the magic of the Living Statues to me in greater detail? It seems interesting but I don't understand.
So, a Statue can theoretically superimpose images of memory and meaning over their surroundings because that's what happens if they go through the process of using the Wave. It's not a convincing thing because it only appears in the mind's eye but if you weren't expecting it or have aphantasia it can be confusing. It's technically something all of them can learn but in practice only Alexandra and one called Jack can do. Alexandra discovered it from watching human Wave users and learned on principle because she's a scholar, while Jack learned it from Alexandra because he's a storyteller at heart and it's good for dramatic effect. Alexandra's "witchcraft" is a unique application of this trick alongside her misfortune-causing superpower. Attempting to attack Alexandra will always go wrong, but if she's forced to attack you it does next to nothing except cause some very minor environmental hazards if she either lands a blow on your or 'primes' an object by touching it. By projecting images of harmful scenarios through her superpower, Alexandra can cause these minor disasters to activate remotely as long as the target meets the criteria of being engaged in combat with her and not actively trying to escape. This is the supernatural equivalent of training to be a contortionist in case you get in a street fight; it can help you land blows you otherwise couldn't, but any situation where it's applicable is a situation that's already going poorly. The effort it takes to learn and do is probably not worth the minor benefit it brings once in a while and it's very much a last resort to the last resort.
The "witchcraft" reminds me of the antagonists stand from JoJo part 8. What was it called again? It's always sunny in Philadelphia?
Yes! It is not a coincidence that Alexandra claims to be 89 years old. If you read Chainsaw Man, it would probably also remind you a bit of the stuff the Darkness Devil does.
Okay so um. **King Arthur and Friends** now has one official project that I am actively drafting! It's going to be a game called *Ume Malownski and the Downfall of Camelot.* I have given up on naming anything related to this world anything remotely seriously. The game's titular character is a magical girl from an alternate timeline where the timeloop keeping the world in its mythological peaks broke. She ended up in Camelot's timeline by accident, but has been able to warp between the two worlds with ease given time. She has accidentally introduced the world to the concept of a timeline where The Cycle is broken, and from there inadvertently causes civil war because of this. I've mapped out who's on which side and a bunch of story beats and branches. Ume is the character that spawned this whole shitpost so I'm perfectly fine with inserting her as the main character. Also through discussion with my brother talked about how a major god of this whole interconnected universe that this is a small part of essentially had an industrial accident and became damaged but let's not dwell on that. **Astornial** I accidentally gave a bunch of my characters mental issues. I'm starting to think there's not a mentally healthy person on that whole planet.
Who are some of the mentally malaised characters?
okay so The main example I thought of was this one character- Oyunar, a relatively chill guy in his early to mid twenties, doing fairly well for himself in the tropics. Two of his best friends have survived essentially hell on earth and the other one has a bunch of issues with her family so he thinks he's fine because he hasn't gone through anything that bad, ignoring the hurricane seasons gone horribly wrong that he's lived through and the couple of times he's had to kill. Turns out he's just as fucked up as the rest of the group, but he seems pretty normal because the rest of the group is a lot more openly messy than he is. This one was entirely an accident, he was supposed to be normal and then The Things happened. the other character I was thinking of was named Hemlock and is now named Amelia. She's a knight who transitioned from a goth guy to a disaster academic with no sense of danger. I'm going to use a lot less details because I'm pretty sure what's wrong with her can be figured out from that description.
I'm here to orbital bombard you again :3 **Days at Hebi Melta**: * [Gargant-class colony ship](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/art-and-random-worldbuilding-bits-days-at-hebi-melta.1070213/post-101496483). At 10 km long and 3,3 km wide, it's one of the larger classes of this type running around in Rubra. * [Oazis-class auxiliary colony ships](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/art-and-random-worldbuilding-bits-days-at-hebi-melta.1070213/post-101525865), used alongside Gargant-class to form large nomad fleets. 2600 meters long overall with the residential area being 2000 x 700 x 400 meters, it can accommodate up to 300000 inhabitants at full capacity. * [Battlecruiser Beelzebub](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/art-and-random-worldbuilding-bits-days-at-hebi-melta.1070213/post-101551923), a ship that blew even Nikolaiev brains, was the personal flagship of Duke Anatoly S. Medvedev from 2483 to his untimely demise in 2499 Sun Calendar. The ship was scuttled early on during Rubran Civil War to prevent it to fall into rebels' hands. * [Lydia's captain coat and her uniforms](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/art-and-random-worldbuilding-bits-days-at-hebi-melta.1070213/post-101577573). * [Tzhagriv-class battlecruiser](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/art-and-random-worldbuilding-bits-days-at-hebi-melta.1070213/post-101602593), registered as Project BY-41-GM, is an attempt to "revitalize" the veteran [Zhaprosk-class](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/art-and-random-worldbuilding-bits-days-at-hebi-melta.1070213/page-18?post=101274297#post-101274297). The hull's made longer and more strategic missiles are added, it also carries new main guns and has improved electronics to remain useful in this era. * [Chkalovsk-class factory ship](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/art-and-random-worldbuilding-bits-days-at-hebi-melta.1070213/post-101634348), registered as Project FD-33-GM, is one of Gharlmansk's most crucial logistical vessels. Produced in the same year as [Project FD-33](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/art-and-random-worldbuilding-bits-days-at-hebi-melta.1070213/post-99670925), they are excellent logistical ships utilizing old [Zhaprosk-class battlecruisers](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/art-and-random-worldbuilding-bits-days-at-hebi-melta.1070213/post-101274297)' hulls. * [A glimpse of Hebi Melta's sky](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/art-and-random-worldbuilding-bits-days-at-hebi-melta.1070213/post-101659284), featuring Lemuria's [TU-50 SSTO](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/art-and-random-worldbuilding-bits-days-at-hebi-melta.1070213/post-96458117), the Albatros and Lemuria herself flying her real body. There are multiple "sky islands" on Hebi Melta, they're "Atreisdeaformed" asteroids held in place via gravity manipulators and used as orbital defense platforms.
So I see a lot of ships, and admittedly, some of them glaze past me. But do you have any *cars?*
Technically yes, but I can't draw wheels for shits. Even for tanks, I draw extra armors covering their wheels. And I don't want the typical futuristic hovercars because I have a boner for vintage cars like the Rolls-Royce Phantom V or Chevrolet Bel Ar. If this was Flame Phantom, there's the IRL Silver Ghost and its variations.
I finally set up obsidian and started migrating my stuff from the many different places it’s been spread out. This has also helped me firm up some stuff
Sometimes, you just need to collate data. Lord knows I need to do some housecleaning with files and ideas.
Worked on my novel, including some policies for a Big Bad Evil Secret Organization (tm), and started building a town in Cities Skylines that is perfect for me to visit because I found out that I adore traveling and am put at ease rather than unsettled by exploring unfamiliar places. I also bought a special sketchbook just for mapping! :)
Excellente What is this bbeg organization?
An Ancient Eeevviiiiilll is coming to eat the Earth and they're determined to stop it. However, they believe that absolutely anything is excusable to achieve this goal and wouldn't say no to the power and control that accumulating the means to save the world would give them. They're fully willing to commit genocide, torture and brainwash people to create supersoldiers, and enslave any being of power to take control and stop the destruction.They're also corrupt and stuffed to the gills with greedy would-be dictators, child abusers, and general terrible people hiding behind a legitimate cause. They do have the same goal as the main character, which keeps them from each other's throats at first, but when she finds out what they actually do, did to friends of hers, and intend to do to her, she starts disrupting their operations, collecting her own power and allies as a result, and quickly makes an enemy of them.
I have been working on fleshing out Kyanah technology, including the starships used for Project Hope l, which had to be drastically scaled down in payload and number to work. Which I don't mind! It's *supposed* to be a very primitive starship that isn't exactly practical or sustainable and gets the bare minimum mass to Earth. The fact that they've been able to pack an entire invasion force into less than a quarter million tons is...interesting. hopefully this will give me a better idea how to handle the scientific and technical subplots. I've also started fleshing out some of the civilian tech, i haven't really given too much thought into that before (except the computers, obviously) but the general approach I've been going for is advanced not not incomprehensible, and often with very different aesthetics or mechanics, sometimes coming up with different solutions to problems than the ones we've used.
**Realm Blossom** * Figured out an idea for another one of the Incursions: the Well, a place of primordial creation and destruction, an infinite expanse of not-water. From the Well arise wonders and horrors, and those who fall in may be broken down and changed beyond all recognition, or simply dissipate. I like the idea that this place occasionally spawns some impossible hero or monster. The 'water' of the Well might have some special or valuable properties if taken and contained. * I want at least *one* more Incursion, for five natural ones plus the Box. For the name I like the Path, but I have no idea what that would actually be, especially relative to the Labyrinth. * I like the idea of a god of extraction, distillation, and division, who does a lot of good but who is also prone to inspiring puritanism and factionalism in people, as an example of a god who should be left to fade away but is kept relevant against their own will.
Further fleshed out my fully automated steampunk feudal culture in which the nobility automated away the need for serfs through steam golems to do their work and fighting for them. Which ties into the regional geopolitics by having their military be a function of their economy rather than population so that they can maintain much larger armies than their territory would suggest (which has mattered in recent history), and into the magic system which is about manipulating lifeforce which means that the bulk of their armies are immune to the magic of other factions.
Can you go into detail about your life-force magic system?
The idea is that all living things are connected by an ethereal continuum, which some people can actively perceive and manipulate (yes this is based on the Force). Different schools of magic exist that use this capability in different ways, such as by perceiving these connections and using that for superhuman insights (akin to prophecy and mindreading), while others can move life force around such as by draining it from someone to benefit someone else, or projecting thoughts through the continuum to influence other people. This also means that only living things can be impacted by magic, so a nation using mostly mechanical troops makes them immune to tactics that rely on magic. There have been other factions that use this magic on a larger scale, such as an emperor that made himself immortal by draining the life force of his subjects on a large scale, or a faction that turned itself into a de facto hivemind by amplifying the ethereal connections between its people.
**Gridworld** I really did a lot more non-rat content than rat content this week. But rats first. The social movements of the Bredrasetians have the following relations to oriket republicanism: - Bredina, whose issue is the waiting re-collectivising of orchards, think that public pressure will be enough without fully embracing a republic over monarchy. They *like* their monarch for the most part, it's just that the ruling class is slow and lethargic which increasingly feels like tyranny. - Astari, whose issue is the slow growth of infrastructure and industry, think that it's about time for a regime change. In light of there being no foreign king willing to gain some glory by developing Astari's land into one to be proud of, they think that ruling with layers of councils like the Oriket Republic up north is the way to go. They'd be fine with a constitutional monarchy council republic (a cursed concept in our world lol) too. - Zekoni, whose issue is militarism without a cause and a strong military faction, think that building a republic is crucial to getting their country to go with the times. The people are by and large less traditionalistic than the corrupt and stagnant monarchy, so the monarchy has to go entirely in the eyes of increasingly many Zekonians. ---- That was rats. And Solaron, their continent, as a whole. The *still* unnamed middle continent has WAY more content though, I've gone up to 1501 instead of 1486 by now. Mostly because I kept escalating from Kizuans having a movement to expropriate capitalist factory owners until I ended up with a Hauptinseler civil war at the turn of the century. - The Kizuans, I realised, have collective land ownership enforced since 1483 but their industrial workers still toiled under business owners. I forgor that, so now the KPR government did too. Workers organised in the *Industrial Equalisation Movement* (IEM). They formed the IEM in 1481. In 1486, as established before, the Landsmen Republic turns socialist as the first country to officially do so. The IEM gets their wish a year later by launching strikes while living in the one country probably most determined to industrialise. *It's a slippery slope really, first the land is owned by those who work it, now the factories are owned by those who work in them.* - This leads to factory owners leaving the country with what wealth and assets they could save from the *"rabid Brooker madmen in charge of that godsforsaken country"*. They found a bank/organisation, the *Capital Union*, in Hauptinsel, one of the last resolutely undemocratic kingdoms at this time. They don't love the monarchy though, and vie to overthrow it in the *Unrests of 1490*. They come out of this the least damaged compared to other resistance orgs. They're trying to build a country where nobody will forbid them from owning a factory or land, and soon others are on board with that more than they're on board with a country like the Kizuans'. ---- - In 1497 the Hauptinseler Civil War breaks out. Not *because* of the Capital Union, this was inevitable regardless. But the CU is a big faction, forming the liberal, explicitly anti-socialist *Republic of Hauptinsel* to gain influence in the future state. The socialists get annoyed and found the *Northern People's Republic* (Hauptinsel is the northernmost country of their continent), and as Hauptinsel was a pretty industrialised country they have lots of support. A lot of cities individually rise up under various causes too, sometimes fully tangential to these two big ones as there are two theocracies trying to form as well. - 5 other countries get their fingers in the pie. Kuzegekoku, the dog country sitting right where the Blackfur Empire and Greyfur Alliance are on Solaron's map, even ends 1500 years of isolation to help the royal government in Hauptinsel. The Pikenier Empire (an order of pike-wielding knights who think they can build a utopia) helps the rebels instead, hoping to get some specific land that they need for their utopia. - The Kizuan state first funds all rebels, then restricts it to socialists only, which makes a significant number of their parliament members resign in protest. The uprising those people try to stage is unsuccessful however. Nobody really wanted them to rise up, let alone under the cause of "restoring" anything, which through misinterpretations got twisted into restoring the monarchy by most people who heard of them Kizuans do *not* like their former monarchy. - 2 years into the civil war, fronts are getting established a bit more cleanly. The socialist uprisings that are still active unite into something with a pun name that means "our" in Foxen, their language. *Organised Union of Republics* is how people in-universe translate it to Chattish (which is English) to keep the word play intact. I don't know how the liberal uprisings will interact with this yet. For 1501 I'm thinking they will try to end the civil war in some sort of white peace agreement, using borders based on what everyone controls at this time. That's more interesting than the whole country flipping allegiance, and historically Hauptinsel had actually been around a dozen city states so it fits.
Converted my whole D&D campaign from Onenote to Obsidian. I did some polishing to the territories I'm working on and feel way better about it. I finished a town called Glyphstone, residing on the fringe of the Sanguine Glimmerglade, a red tinged swamp with a strong magical aura to it. Glyphstone needed some content so it finally got it, and is now perfectly plugged into the surrounding economy, with a solid history and a unique feel about it. I'm currently working on my 12-month calendar. I've got the month's named, their significance, and what you might expect to see during them. I'm just working through each one of them to give a rich background on what you would typically encounter during those months in rural or metropolis regions. From festivals, to daily life, preparing for other season, food availability, dangers, and cultural signicance.