auroraofinspiration

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Please welcome Perucetus, the new - and largest- known archeoceti.

A whale of enormous proportions. While it's exact size and weight is certainly a matter of heated debates it was no doubt a really big boi. Here a quick sketch of it approaching a time traveler.

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Doriath

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Greater Sooty Gloor

“The Greater Sooty Gloor is notorious for frequenting massive old libraries. Like their smaller subspecies, Sooty Gloors hoard paper and scraps of books to build immense nests.

Their omnivorous diet allows them to have flexible sources of food. Often bullying the smaller Tufted Gloors, they tend to scavenge and steal food from them and other library-dwelling creatures”

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Random Worldbuilding Questions

Are there any foods with symbolic meanings that are eaten on special occasions (e.g. katsudon for victory, or new years oranges for luck)? How did the tradition get started?

We all know about weddings and marriage, but are there any ceremonies that symbolically / legally / magically officialize a different type of relationship in your world’s culture? (Adoption, apprenticeship, friendship, etc.)

What’s a rule or social norm that is widely followed in theory, but in practice everyone knows it’s not a big deal and breaks it all the time?

Are there any trades or hobbies whose practitioners are stereotyped as weird or extraordinary? (E.g. the “mad hatter” trope.) Why? How true is this perception?

What are some cliches, tropes, and/or plots that commonly appear in stories written by your world’s inhabitants? What were they inspired by? Why are they popular?

What is a common way to subtly insult someone in your world, without crossing into overt rudeness? Gifting an item with negative connotations? Addressing them more familiarly or formally than normal? Backhanded compliments?

If you pulled a random average Joe off the streets of your world and asked them to draw a house, what would they draw? (Shape, roof style, position and number of windows, etc.)

Is there a place in your world that nobody has ever been to - the bottom of a cave, the moon, another dimension, etc.? How do people know it exists? Why haven’t they gone there? What do they believe it’s like, and how right/wrong are they?

What aesthetics are considered “advanced” or “futuristic” in your world - canvas wings, shiny chrome, smooth plastic? How has this changed over time?

What’s a fun fact about your world that you as the worldbuilder are dying to share, but nobody ever thinks to ask? 

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Quick worldbuilding hack, if you want to make a coherent political system for your fantasy world:

Basically, between the fall of Rome and early modern times, in Europe* most political organization wasn't actually kingdoms ruled by One True King like it's usual in fantasy, but something like this:

Feudalism: here, the center of power was not the nation (there was little concept of such thing) or the state, and not even the King, but the landowners (from kings to dukes to counts...) and their network of vassalages to each other. There were no "countries" but rather hereditary titles, and the people who held them. There was little of a true state besides what individual rulers did; they didn't even have formal armies as such, but rather the vassals who provided them, they and could have multiple allegiances. Examples are of course the Holy Roman Empire (neither holy, etc. etc.) France (note that the 100 Years War was a dispute about titles rather than France vs. England), Spain (actually a bunch of kingdoms and crowns rather than a country), etc...

"Empires": A state where a central goverment exerts power over other territories and peoples. These are rather familiar to us, because a formal state exists here, and the ruler is more powerful and often does have a standing arming and administration instead of relying on vassals. Here, there is a bureacracy and a claim to rule a territory, and while they might have vassals and prominent artistocratic families (everyone did) their administration was state-based, not allegiance based. The Roman Empire is the most imperial empire, as well as its cringefail successor the Byzantine Empire, but note that the great Islamic empires also had this kind of administration, with governors appointed and confirmed by the imperial court.

City-States: Basically a powerful city (though they were often the size of small towns, still, very rich) ruled by a local aristocracy, sometimes hereditary, sometimes elected from a few families or guilds, or a mix of both, and in some cases ruled by religious authorities. These could be independent or organized in alliances, but were often vassals of more powerful goverments such as above. Cities are in many way the building brick of larger states; of note, in the Ancient Mediterranean before Rome conquered it all, leagues of city-states were the main powers. Medieval and Early Modern independent city states were the Italian city states of course, and a famous league was the Hansa (many of its members themselves vassals of other powers)

Tribes and Clans: Every culture is different with this, but basically here the centre of power is the relationships between families and kinship. If this sounds familiar to Feudalism, you've been paying attention; Feudalism is what happened when the Roman empire and administration fell, and it was replaced by landowners and their ties of vassalage and allegiances.

Now, besides the history lesson, why is this important? Because there are reasons why rulers had their power, and you should know that.

A king never ruled alone. He was only the head of nobles tied by vassallage (feudalism), or the head of a inherited state bureaucracy and army ("empire"). If you killed the king, another one would rise from the prominent families. Often by bloody civil wars or conquest yes, but the system overall would stay. A king did not reign by its own power or virtue, but because the system itself supported him, and of course, he maintained the system.

A new king who wants to replace the bad old king (a common fantasy storyline) needs to also deal with the allegiances of all its vassals (who would probably rather kill him and take the throne themselves) or build a bureaucracy and an army, supremely expensive endeavors in those times, which took decades if not centuries to build. In fact, the Byzantines and the Arabs inherited most of their state aparatus, in one way or the other, from the Romans.

This is also why these systems lasted so long, too. The appearance of modern republics and other systems of goverment needed the coordination of people and revolutions that did not just kill the king, but also replace it with something else, and for that you need literacy, economic changes, an empowered populace... But that's for another time.

I hope this is fucking helpful because I don't want to spell allegiance ever again.

*I would love to do more about goverments outside Europe, especially Precolombine American ones like the redistrubitionist state-based economy of the Incas, or the Mesoamerican city-states. But that's for another time.

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orcs orcs orcs! Some of my ocs from an original worldbuild. In this worldbuild, in order for a new orc to be born, a creature must be hunted and its blood used in a ritual. The resulting orc is blessed with the strengths and abilities of the creature which helped to make them. 

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Are Animals Becoming Extinct in Fantasy Novels?

Recently, I read this post titled “Animals have been taken off in novels since 1835. Is fiction undergoing its own extinction event?” which talks about a study that found that since 1835, the use of wild animals in fiction has dropped drastically.

Many are blaming this “slow extinction” on modern societies disconnect to nature. After all, not everyone spends their days outside, so they might not notice mice, birds, or even the insects at their feet. If they do not think about animals in their daily life, why would they think about them while writing?

That is the theory, at least.

It is worthwhile pointing out what several other writers and readers are; there are plenty of animals in children’s fiction. That is true, but what about young adult to adult fantasy? Since that is what I personally write, that is what I wanted to talk about.

Just going off what books I think of first, it seems like often in fantasy novels, the only prey animals (like deer, squirrels, or rabbits) that we see are after nearly always during or after they are hunted. Then there is the complete lack of mosquitos, leaches, biting ants, and other annoying creatures.

Sometimes, there is a mention of the sound of birds singing, but rarely ever are there any details of the birds or what they are doing. Where are the ducks and swans on the lakes? Where are the birds building nests?

Now you may be going “What is the point? Why should I care?” and I get that, but by eliminating these creatures, your novels could be losing a sense of realism.

For example, in Stephen Kings The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon — which I argue is a light fantasy story, not a horror story — has a girl is lost in the woods and stalked by a creature. Interestingly, even most survival books fail to mention animals apart from for food, but Stephen King did not do that. He had deer, water bugs skittering across ponds, and even wasps that attack the main character. This added a sense of reality to the novel. It was not just a forest with some trees and plants, it was a forest filled with life, and that can be dangerous for anyone, let alone a young girl.

So, go ahead, raise the mood with your characters. If they are miserable, make them more so by having the mosquitos bite at them day and night or have them step in a anthill. If they are happy, they could watch a mother bird feeding its young or a swan rubbing necks with its partner.

Adding more hints of nature could not only amplify the mood, but it could also make your forests seem more real.

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I was inspired by @jezifster's recent question about non-gendered royal titles, and I put together this graphic to serve as a jumping off point for people writing monarchies in SFF !

Obviously this non-exhaustive list contains mainly western titles, all in English. Feel free add any on additional gender neutral terminologies that you can think of, including those from different languages and cultures!

A small addition: I'm not a linguist or historian and put this list together based on some quick googling! While you're free to flex the usage and meanings of these words however you choose, researching the real-world context of each term before using them in your own writing is a best practice.

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Places you should add to your little town/city in your fantasy world!!

Post offices. Wild, I know. But give me the unhinged kind. Pingeons and little postal dragons all over the place. You enter. The most disgusting smell fucking assaults your nostrils. You know what it is. Letter in hand, you go up to the counter. The postal worker is just a slightly bigger pigeon. You shed a tear.

PLAYGROUNDS!! Create the most dangerous kinds of playgrounds, the ones suburban moms would TRIP if they ever saw one. Monkey bars that are way too tall, swings that go full circle... The metal slide stays the same, it's already painful enough.

PARKS!! MAKE IT ALIVE!! Show people going on walks, reading beneath trees. C'mon most of them are already hundred years old (And are going to die after that CR 15 creature wrecks the town) anyways!! Show couples and picnics, show a family enjoying the sunday, give me someone picking flowers for their loved ones.

A bakery! Do you know how much these places are underrated? And do you know how much plot potential they have? Every good story starts with food poisoning or granny's recipe! Give me a place your players/readers are going to treat like home and, for once, it's not a tavern or a guild.

Government buildings! Give me a town hall that has a kilometric line in front of it. Give me a registry that is as old as this town. Give me police stations! Give me courtrooms! Make one of your players get arrested and now all of the party has to go through burocracy like a bunch of normal people!

(Who am I kidding? You don't need to make them get arrested. They are going to do that for you.)

Touristic attractions! Give me a full-on statue of the country's leader! Give me museums! Give me streets, ruins and whatnot that attract thousands of tourists everyday! Give me an annoying city guide that tries to get the party's attention everytime!

Magazine stands! Magazines don't exist? Newspaper stands! From the Queen's Journal to the most questionable new piece of Fox's Tailtracker, you have it all! Make your players doubt what's actually happening, sprinkle a little fake news... Or is it fake at all?

...Toy stores. OK HEAR ME OUT. Make magic toys; miniature skyships that actually fly, metal toy dragons that expel fire, little wands that make little light spells, wooden creatures that can move and make noises... Make children happy! And your players too because they will waste their money on these stuff.

Instrument store!! Make your bards happy with special instruments or just weird ones! Give me a battle in one of those that is just filled with funny noises and the worst battle soundtrack ever!!

Not exactly a place but... Cleaning carts!!! Show me people cleaning the streets, picking up the trash, cutting trees!! Make the town look clean!! Give me an old man that is really proud of his work!!!

(or ways to make your players feel even worse when the villain destroys the town later on :) )

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This came across my Facebook feed, felt I’d share it.

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One thing I didn't expect from my new worldbuilding book is the author, roughly my dad's age, including his opinions on furries

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https://www.artstation.com/mangotino

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all the tips I found for drawing a fantasy map are like :) “here’s a strategy to draw the land masses! here’s how to plot islands!” :) and that’s wonderful and I love them all but ??? how? do y'all decide where to put cities/mountains/forests/towns I have my map and my land but I’m throwing darts to decide where the Main Citadel where the Action Takes Place is

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y’all want some cool, muslim-made, modest fashion ideas for your hijabi characters?

absolutely nobody asked but here, have them anyway (all via the Islamic Fashion Institute):

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Alex Chen - Life is strange: True Colors (2021)