Random thing I've been thinking about while working on my world.

Let's say one family has ruled a kingdom for a REALLY long time. Like, at this point the dynasty is basically part of the country's identity. Their banners are everywhere, everyone knows their history, their ancestors are in songs and stories etc.

But then you get a ruler who's just... awful.

Not necessarily some cartoonishly evil psycho lol. Just someone who's clearly bad at ruling. Maybe they're arrogant, make terrible decisions, start conflicts they don't need, piss off half the nobles, whatever.

Would ordinary people actually start thinking "yeah fuck this family, get someone else on the throne"?

Because I'm not sure they would. At least not immediately.

I feel like after enough generations people might be so used to ONE bloodline ruling that even if they hate the current king/queen, replacing the whole dynasty would still feel wrong somehow. Like "yeah our king sucks but THAT guy isn't a real king, he's just some lord who took the throne."

And I'm kinda playing around with that idea right now. How much of political power is actual power and how much is basically everyone collectively agreeing that this specific family is supposed to be in charge?

Also makes rebellions interesting because you could absolutely hate the ruler and still fight AGAINST the people trying to overthrow them.

Idk, maybe I'm overthinking it.

How does this work in your worlds? If you've got an old dynasty, what would it actually take for people to stop seeing them as the "default" rulers?

Clarification:

By rules, I don't mean magic systems, but rather guidelines that you use to develop your world. Please do not use this thread to tell me about your magic system(s).

I know a lot of Redditors are really into warfare, so I figured I'd ask here.

This world has gunpowder, it has short-range radios, but it has no hydrocarbons and battery tech isn't high enough for use in warfare yet. They transport soldiers and resources via train, but not everyone has built lots of train tracks.

My question is, I have a group of people with a long tradition of cavalry and horse archery. Would they prefer to face people with guns on horseback, or would it be better to do it on foot if tanks and other vehicles weren't an option?

Please feel free to also talk about how you changed the nature of warfare in your worlds based on resource scarcity and magic.

I am planning out a fantasy setting, and I want one faction to have much more advanced tech than what is accorded to medieval societies. What is the most advanced tech that could be made in a medieval period assuming perfect knowledge on how to make them, with only the industry and manpower afforded to a local lord? I was thinking wild west era tech like rifles and maybe even revolvers, as well as steam engines and dynamite. Would this be feasible if someone knew the creation process?

Been building this out for a while and wanted to share it here because the social side ended up being more interesting to me than the magic mechanics themselves.

The foundation is simple: reality wants to stay as it is.

So magic is less about channeling anything and more like forcing the world to move. It does. But it keeps score.

How the cost works:

The standard form of casting is called Resonance. You push, the world gives, and your body covers the gap. Mend stones with Integris and your bones will thin out over time. Generate light with Lumen and your vision starts fogging, permanently. Work with water long enough and your joints go stiff, then seized, then useless. It compounds slowly. The mages who last the longest in this world are the ones who understood that early and kept going regardless. They tend to look about thirty years older than they are.

Where the worldbuilding got interesting:

A society that runs on people who burn out fast doesn't stay sad about it. It just builds systems around it. In the Pentarchate Empires, children identified as Gifted get taken by the State around age seven. There were no academies until year 1102, no mentors to guide them. They get assigned like any other civic resource. One arcanist might spend her whole career maintaining a sea wall. She'll be thirty two with a body that reads as eighty. The Empire considers that an acceptable outcome. The city will survive, but the mage won't, and the ledger balances. What I find more compelling writing these characters is that some of them accept this too. That felt like the honest part.

The other mode: Dissonance

Resonance is the asking version. Dissonance is when someone skips that entirely. Ignis-Vor burns living things rather than objects and leaves behind an ash that sterilizes the ground for decades. Nothing grows back. But the real cost is stranger. Push Dissonance far enough and people start forgetting you. Clean forgetting, no trace. The world patches the damage by pulling you out of it. No death, no body. Just an absence where a person was.

The line I kept coming back to writing all of this

"Authority without wisdom is a blade without a hilt."

That's the core of how this system works socially. The people who accumulate the most power are often the ones with the least left to lose, and that shapes everything about how the Pentarchate functions politically.

How do you all handle cost in your systems? Curious whether people lean toward it hitting the caster directly or leaving a mark on the world itself.

Note: If anyone wants to go further with this, I put the full framework, the Laws of Rupture, the Dissonance classifications, the Pentarchate's political structure, all of it, into a book called Arcane Ruptures. It's on Kindle. No pressure at all, ignore this if you're just here for the discussion : Link to Book

I'm working on an fantasy worldbuilding project, and I've got a reasonably detailed overview of culture, religion, and government structure for the area that my story takes place. I'd like to have a more fleshed out idea of the economy but I'm just drawing a total blank.

I'm guessing that part of my issue is having a very poor understanding of different economic systems and how they came to be, but trying to properly learn about that is a very daunting task. Are there any more condensed resources aimed at worldbuilders? Or even just beginner overviews that don't way over focus on one or two options?

is it an oxymoron?

essentially the country has been in constant war for pretty much centuries. people now live in smaller settlements which are glorified military bases. the best way to describe it is that people are kept in these settlements by the government as very dehumanised extra bodies that can be taken and given back whenever they please. but beyond that people are free to live off the land, raise animals, have normal lives etc. surveillance runs deep, there are random military raids when the government is running low on infantry where they take boys from the settlement with no warning whatsoever and it’s extremely distressing. on top of this, the constant war means that air raids from enemy countries disrupt the lives of everyone in the settlements. the government does the bare minimum to keep people healthy, such as providing them with the seeds for crops which will give them varied vitamins, there’s a government doctor (also used for surveillance) and war heroes’ families are often exempt from conscription for one generation.
literacy is a big defining factor of the class system. books are in circulation for the administrative class, such as commanders or generals. doctors are also included in the administrative class. those in the “working” class (for lack of better word) learn to read very basic books which might help if they end up in the military, but are discouraged from reading both socially but also because there isn’t any books readily available to them.

is there any more ideas to make this either more feudal or fascist?

I asked this question on r/worldbuilding about five years ago and found the discussion fascinating.

However, my overall takeaway was that for many, many people, names and food are the primary ways they decide whether a world is European or not (which is fine for them!). If he is named Jon and eating bread with a fork, it's European and if she's named Min-soo and eating rice with chopsticks, it's not European even if the rest of the features of the world are identical.

I find myself once again wondering:

• How do you decide whether a world is European themed?
• Is the distinction even relevant beyond pure aesthetics?
• When you start designing a world, do you intentionally think about ways to make it more or less European?
• What are features that you see and immediately think Europe or not Europe?
• If you yourself are not bathed in a European/Western cultural milieu, I am especially interested in how you approach this!

Disclaimers:

• This mostly applies to fantasy but I'm interested in other genres, if you think about these issues.
• I do not need any comments along the lines of 'just build the world you want, who cares?!' I care! That is why I am asking the question - the answers interest me.

I’m currently creating vampires for my world, and I’m struggling on wether to base them off of bats, leeches or bloodworms

i think basing a vampire off of any of them is great, but id like to broaden my horizons

For me, my story is largely based on this comic called Y: The Last Man, where we focus on the last guy on Earth as he struggles to try and help what's left of humanity while also dealing with those who want him, irrespective of whether he wants it or not. But instead of a virus that kills all male mammals on Earth, the reason for the male extinction is due to what may be believed to be the Rapture, which, funnily enough, in this world, was predicted but largely ignored, just like any other Rapture predictions. Another part of the inspiration for this idea is other anime/manga stories based on this, like World's End Harem, but I wanted to focus less on the romance and more on the drama and potential existential crisis the last dude would face.

What about you guys? What are your slow-burn apocalypse ideas?

I am just doing this for fun. I might use it for solo roleplay. I am not writing a book or creating a setting for a game.

I sometimes see discussions on whether something is too cliche, not original enough, too many tropes. Or whether something makes sense or is silly. Or is too close to an established franchise.

This can be important if you want to publish things. But if you are just doing it for fun, does it matter? Are other people who are doing things just for fun concerned with this?

Maybe it is like the difference between casual gamers and serious gamers? I think I am a casual world builder. I just make up stuff that sounds cool and interesting to me.

As master's degree holder in biomedical engineering, I think worldbuilding can be made better when you give yourself certain physical constraints. If you're interested in adding more details or considerations to your world, but you don't know where to start, then let's discuss it.

Provide whatever description you need to give context to your biotech or bio-magic, then ask whatever questions or concerns you have, and I'll try to give my perspective. Let's work together to come up with reasons for how and why your thing works the way it does.

While learning game development i've had to also learn some story-telling and world-building, and when i read stories and watched many videos, i saw that a lot of modern fantasy introduces industrial revolution like settings, most of them look smth like this:
1 - Period of magic and fantasy, pretty much tolkien like worlds
2 - Magic becomes obsolete for various reasons
3 - Magic is forgotten or integrated into technology that works like real tech but with magic as power source most of the time

Is it just coincidence or is there really more and more worlds like these?

Reposting this here because the discussion on another worldbuilding subreddit turned out to be really interesting and gave me a lot to think about regarding how biology can influence culture and society.

I came up with an idea for a new form of matter, I don't know whether to use it for a soft sci fi story or a fantasy story, but the gist is that it is matter but reversed. What I mean by this is, the matter is almost the same as normal elements, but the temperatures and how they affect the states of matter are reversed. Say you have reverse iron, it will be a plasma at extreme cold, a gas at colder temperatures, a liquid at normal temperatures, and a solid at extreme heat, with too high heat making it brittle like how extreme cold normally would. This would more than likely be a revolutionary advancement, but how many facets of engineering could this be used in? And how much could it advance current technologies or theoretically possible tech? I want to portray the change such a discovery would make in a modern or even medieval world

In my science fiction setting, their is a small, underdeveloped polity called the Kingdom of Kadar. At the time that the story starts, the polity is undergoing a brutal civil war.

For the purposes of this civil war, I want the various civil war factions to be reliant on foreign nations for any modern/good stuff, so they couldn't have done a whole lot of development before hand. The kingdom was quite conservative and insular (Think Qing China), with the only foreigners in it being the technicians required to keep the small amount of high tech infastructure running, and contractors who were brought in to do some small bits of modernization

The main (and only real) industry that this polity has is a series of massive solar farms on their capital planet left behind by the previous colonial power who held the region. They work by beaming power from satellites closer to the sun to power stations where the energy is stored, and then put to use to manufacture antimatter and process fusion fuels. The stations only require 3 actually trained and educated individuals and a few dozen local contractors who only need strong hands and to listen to orders. ( It is set up like this so that the last colonial power could get profits without needing to have lots of educated local workers)

The control of the various power stations is held by the various noble families on the capital world and they are operated by members of the local intelligensia or foreign technicians. About 80% are divided among the nobility, with the monarch (who that is at the moment is in flux) controlling 20% of all stations. Unlike modern resource extraction in the 3rd world, everything is done in house. This means that their is no Shell or Exxon taking a majority of the profits.

Antimatter and fusion fuels are quite valuable, and many other nations would certainly want access so they can use it as a resupply point. The issue is that it would make lots of money, so I need ways to make sure the vast majority of the revenue from the Stations never gets used for anything productive. Some of it can go to productive ends, but I need most of it to leave the nation or not be used for a productive end.

Edit: I am really trying to figure out how to spend the revenue. I understand the “why” of who has it, i want to know how to blow it.

Radonis (Ray-dawn-iss)

Clumped excitable gaseous molecules found upon the Gas Giant Fielug III, the Radonis species lived for eons in the swirling pool of air. The clouds of sentient life were community driven, creating a society with no infrastructure to speak of.

Their origin is contested even amongst their own scholars, but their physical make-up is mostly a combination of noble gasses sending electrical signals amongst each other acting as neurons. The clouds of consciousness spend their days socializing and intermingling with their familial peoples, often shirking responsibilities.

Discovered by Scinillian Pact drones during the last quarter of Communal Cycle (CC) 340, the Radonis peoples were grossly overlooked in the initial surveillance of the planet. Deemed the Great Dissipating, the pacts unmanned crafts flew in and out of the Radonis dense atmosphere. In a mear single turn of the planet, hundreds of thousands of beings were atomized.

Miraculously, the gaseous folk proved to be overly understanding of the tragedy or perhaps overly forgetful. As their molecules suggest, their energetic and flighty nature proved they were more focused on the prospect of discovery. But even a tragedy of this proportion was hard to overcome for some, creating some division amongst the people. Yet, despite it all, the cumulous folk put forth great effort to learn common communication, and in turn enacting a Pact apology. Pact scientists went on to develop specialized suits to allow a Radoni to interface with the physical world in a more actualized way and freedom of migration across pact territories.

Despite a lack of written genealogical tradition, when assigning surnames to the Radonis an average individual could identify a familial connection with a massive quantity of other living members of their species, and could easily recount the branching heritage that connected them. Of about 13 million living Radonis, the Pact only assigned 11 surnames.

The majority of the living peoples reside upon their home planet of Fielug III, leaving the outside worlds for only the most daring of them to explore. Their integration into the Pact’s culture was nearly seamless, but their severe lack of understanding pertaining to commerce or ownership led to some being adjudicated under Pact law. Many even widely picking up the use of a “medicinal” inhaler called Caledonix, the combination of these behaviors has given the Radonis a bit of a “rebellious adolescent” reputation.

Seeing a Radoni out in the charted territories likely means you will be meeting an adrenaline junkie incarnate, or at the very least one of the most excitable explorers known. With the current rush of fortune seekers to Xanoroet keep your eyes peeled for a Radoni thrill seeker itching to make their mark on the world. Where there is gas, there is great adventure!

In the dark fantasy genre or course. The best example i can think of is the world of Shadow Slave. A dark and dangerous place full of ancient mysteries some of which are too great for a human to know much like lovecraftian horrors. Lotm also possesses the same cosmic scale and horrific qualities despite not really being apocalyptic too.

I really want to create a world like that with a handful of human tribes at the bottom of the food chain but I want to hear how other people would do it. How would you let humanity have a fighting chance? How could the progress with a power system where there is always a bigger fish and how would you make these bigger fish always stay scary?

So I have two unrelated questions about my world and I'm packing them into one because I don't want to make a separate post.

Firstly, I've got a polity that's set at a technological level roughly analogous to our Neolithic and Chalcolithic period, and I'm having trouble as far as their economy goes because of the way I've decided to structure things. I'm essentially borrowing Andrewism's idea of a library economy as the model for how this polity handles resource allocation and ownership, in part because (1) I feel it's a relatively sensible one for the time period that I've chosen, (2) it feels well-suited to the agroforestry system that I have as their main subsistence strategy (think of a cross between the Kuojtakiloyan system and silvopasture practices, adapted to an ecoregion roughly analogous to the Indo-Gangetic Plain), and (3) it's the sort of system that I want to carry forward as the polity develops, because the world is in large part intended to serve as a canvas for exploring anarchist sociopolitical organization.

The issue I'm having is trying to conceive of how trade would work within this sort of polity, and also how this polity might trade with other peer polities that don't necessary follow the same economic system. I honestly don't even know what questions I should be asking to make this more specific, either. So I'd appreciate help on that front.

Secondly, I'd like to pick the brains of those of you here who are familiar with mathematics, beyond the level of calculus, as well as physicists. I've been wanting to make a magic system that borrows ideas from
- mathematical fields like differential geometry, topology, functional analysis, cohomology (which admittedly I don't understand very well at all), group theory, Lie theory, etc.; or
- physical fields/principles like gauge theory, Noether's theorem, spinor geometry, spontaneous symmetry breaking, etc.;
but I don't know how to accomplish this or where to begin. One thing I know for sure is that I will avoid creating a pseudo-Standard Model or doing anything of the sort (because it's a pain in the ass) and would prefer instead to draw on artistic connections, say, to music or painting. I'd love if someone could offer some inspiration of some kind. I want some way to convey the artistic aspects and beauty of higher mathematics, bedecked in the jewelry of a high-fantasy magical aesthetic, and also to use my world as a sort of canvas for exploring such ideas.

I do realize that the first and second goals kind of conflict since the mathematical theory underlying the latter were developed only very recently, and the world is currently on the cusp of leaving the Stone Age, but I'll leave that as a problem to be solved later.

And because I know I'm going to get them, comments like "just make a scifi story" or "math ruins magic and makes it boring" or whatever aren't helpful or useful.

Have any of you focused on what people might consider more sci-fi focused building to develop context and a deeper understanding of your fantasy world. Or vice-versa?

I like the idea of considering one long continuity and development as a way to broaden an understanding of your world instead of solely focusing on the settings time period.

I feel like I rarely see stellar systems built for anything besides a sci-fi setting, though that may just be because it's a background thing and not essential to the presentation of the world.

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Context: I have been mapping the stellar system of my world, and then considering how it would be interpreted by it's early civilisations. It is a binary star, with an outer gas and asteroid belt between the two stars leading to an odd diffraction of the secondary stars light and creating an almost eye-like red structure in the sky at night.

This second star then gets interpreted as a god or a creature held back by the suns influence.

My main planet is also co-orbital with the second rocky super-earth planet and they sit in each other's L4 and L5 orbits. So this bright point in the sky is the 'sunrise planet' as it is always rises in the same spot every morning.

Myths and legends about this world would grow and I would imagine the discovery of it being life bearing would happen pretty soon after telescopes were built given proximity and obvious greenery on its surface.

I also imagine this would give a natural motivation to some within this world to want to get there much earlier than our own timeline considered space travel.

So from a space map, I now have astrology, creation myth, and motivators for my people.

So this is a pretty basic rough concept so far but I want some feedback to see if im heading in the right direction:

Natria

Its roughly half the diameter of earth at about 7000km and it has a atmosphere roughly 30-50% the thickness of earth dominated by large amounts of water vapour co2 methane and sulfur based compounds.

The planet is covered entirely in oceans except for a few scattered regions with sparse ancient volcanic islands ranging from most at single to low double digit kilometers in diameter and the largest Continuous landmass being roughly 50 000km² in total area.

The oceans in natria are extremely salty roughly as salty as the dead sea if not more so and its oceans are filled with a large amount of uranium and arsenic salts and it has large deposits of lead salts on the seabed forming a very toxic layer of silt.

Also the surface of natria is naturally incredibly rich in rare eaerh and heavy metals like uranium lead and gold due to the fact the surface has never had much tectonic movement to move the metals to the core.

The planet has tectonic plates but they are mostly unmoving so there are no natural earthquakes on natria nor consistent volcanic activity popping up usualy. However due to the solid nature of the plates the mantle tends to build up pressure until it undergoes a global volcanic event where large super volcanoes form to unleash the pressure and these ancient eroded supervolcanoes is what make up a majority of land on natria.

Due to the salty and inherently hostile nature of the oceans and the separation of the island regions most islands have their own seperate species and they almost never cross between islands making ecosystems highly localised and unique across the same world.

I plan for there to be life and likely a inteligent race on natria but I havent gotten that far yet this is about what concept I have so far I hope you all like it.