#Worldbuilding Ideas

[thecrazyworldbuilder]

Reminder that there's no universal symbolism.

In your world, black can be the color of love. Horns can be a symbol of corruption. Hooves can be the sign of loyalty.

Like the dark nights spent in the embrace of your lover. Like fungi that grow out of dead bodies looking like goat horns. Like the loyal steed that will ride you into battle.

[whereserpentswalk]

Imagine what it would be like for a society with 21st century level tech, on an earth that was both flat and infinite. Our society lead us to stop exploring at a certain point. Eventually trade caravans stopped finding new lands to trade with, and colonial empires stopped finding new places to destroy. But in a world like this that just wouldn't happen, first contact situations would be basically indefinite.

Think about what that would do to your sense of place in the world. Around the equivalent of the 1800s we'd probably figure out that there wasn't going to be an end. Some exploration would be haltered by things like massive uninhabitable zones (who knows how climate would work), but a 21st century society would always find ways.

Imagine living comfortably in a 21st century world and finding out about new first contacts, new contents, new cultures, new species, every day. There would be entire places, entire human civilizations, that you only learn exist as an adult. It would certainly change politics a lot (there are always new threats, and always new players on the board, and imperialism might be way worse of the wrong regime is doing the exploration). There would be an entire branch of anthropologist that exists to find new cultures. Scifi and fantasy would make up weird things that exist in hidden corners of the world.

There's no big thesis to this. Just thing it's an interesting normalweird worldbuilding concept. Could be very lighthearted. Could be very very dark.

[mebis-art-dump]

Elves not liking red meat not because of "being in tune with nature" vegetarian trope, but because of its high iron content

[shy-raccoon]

Worldbuilding Tip

If you have a fantasy race with animal traits look at that animals social structure when desiging their culture.

A kingdom of lion people could have 2 types of towns, one with mostly women and one man as mayor and another made up of men banished from the first town when they hit puberity. With duals to decide the mayor of the first town.

Fauns and satyrs could banish all men from town except for during mating season with only women running socity or have seperate towns for each gender like actual deer herds.

Most cultures in fantasy are real world cultures with the serial numbers shaved off or a mish mash of real world cultures. So this is a great way to make more interesting cultures in your setting.

[writerbeemedina]

Hi I would really like to see a mermaid society modeled after orcas, please. 👉🏼👈🏼

• Matriarchal, led by oldest wisest female who raised other children in the pod

• Knowledge of their exclusive hunting techniques and hunting territories passed onto each generation

• Nomadic

• Often kills other sea creatures just for the thrill of it

• Strong emotional bonds

Thank you. You’re welcome.

[clarafyer]

A worldbuilding idea for making your fictional nation interesting: choose a crime, taboo, etc. and make it legal, perhaps even engraved in the culture.

For example, cannibalism. It could be tradition to hold a feast in the honor of the recently deceased, devouring them as a way to signify their sacrifice will not be wasted. That could be not only the main way of holding a funeral, but it could be embedded in the culture. Perhaps it arose from the early days of the nation, when the founders resorted to cannibalism to survive.

[sarahowritesostucky]

Dom/sub AU worldbuilding: collars

One of my favorite things to do when worldbuilding is to imagine the fashion. And in a D/s AU or a/b/o AU, I love to picture all the different collars people would wear. Just think of all the different types and styles there would be: ornate, jeweled, dressy, sleek, leather, functional, utilitarian, protective, ones for single people and ones for mated/claimed people, high fashion ones, cheap affordable ones, masculine ones and feminine ones, bold ones and demure ones, fabric ones, metal ones, jeweled ones. Here's a few from my stupid-long Pinterest board of collars:

[mossymossman]

Dnd Idea

The bodies of dead god-like creatures are mined for valuable resources.

In the mountains where a great purple worm was slain a dwarven city was built on its corpse. Houses are built into the bones and armor of the worm, and bridges cross between them because the bottom is filled with great worm poison. The people mine the corpse for it's valuable resources. It's a hub of chemical research.

[drinkinboilingcoffee]

So in g/t writing, size matters a LOT for the Tinies. Depending on how tall they are in your world, they might be near-impervious to fall since they weigh so little, or seriously endangered by water since it’s tension can pull them under and refuse to let go. Here’s a pretty good resource if anyone is interested (it goes over superlarge animals briefly too, so it can help with Giant writing too):

[lost-technology]

Something I found randomly on Youtube that was like catnip to me because I was all "THIS IS WHERE I GREW UP!" Technically, I grew up outside of Phoenix, in a rural area (below the Gila River, a stone's throw of it, crossed it driving to get anyywhere). Sometimes, it even had water! (I am serious. It only sometimes had water more than a dog pee stream by the time it hit my area). And, yes, I have many a tactic for coping with heat - at least when the heat isn't too humid). I visited my family last year and... wow, yeah, the growth has been... alarming. (It's actually caused a homeless problem as people in cheap housing have gotten their homes and lands bought out by industry and rich people). Back when I was growing up there, it was mostly just new exclusive communities being built, making their damn lawns and golf courses and fake-lakes that people in the nearby sticks (my family) were not allowed to swim or fish in because it was only for the rich people in the community. Did I mention I hate rich people? (I know that people are not supposed to be bigoted, but I think that this is one bigotry that I am allowed. It started early). The gentrification of the area has really messed up the already messed up environment there with the groundwater. (My family subsisted on groundwater). Anyway, this video goes into a deep dive not only about the history of the desert part of Arizona, but also the engineering challenges and how people are essentially TERRAFORMING it. I grew up with a front row seat with all of the farming and irrigation canals, but there's even other things. ( I was once commissioned to do ads when I worked at a newspaper out there for a startup company that was trying to FARM SHRIMP in the desert. Desert Sweet Shrimp). Yes, people in AZ are that brain-baked by the sun and that crazy. I thought a look into this (a "yeeeep, this explains my childhood home") might be of interest to anyone who does fanfiction for Trigun in terms of worldbuilding ideas. Just switch out rivers for secret underground No Man's Land water and Hydro-Plants pushed to their limits and you've got yourself some straggling survivors trying to do the old Project SEEDS dream on an inhospitable planet in a monument to man's arrogance.

[thecrazyworldbuilder]

How to worldbuild:

1: Don't try to do everything at once. Better define a setting by what cannot happen in it rather than what can. A world without tech more advanced than an Archimedes screw water pump is already more defined than a world where all animals can be hybridized.

2: Make things internally realistic, not externally. Unicorns and fairies don't exist in real life, but in your setting? They better be credible.

3: Continuity and consistency. If you put "but" into statements too many times, the picture of the world will be full of exceptions and broken rules, which raises the question - why are they (the rules) there in the first place if they are broken in the next sentence? Put things simply, even the most complex concepts can be explained through metaphors.

4: Reference yourself. Once you've wrote something, attach it to something you wrote previously. Relationships between kingdoms, the effect of this specific material on the economy and technology, why don't mages just hypnotize the monarchs and bind their will and so on.

5: Have fun :D

And lastly, remember that one and the same world will look different from different narratives. A farmer from Ancient Greece will see the world one way, a modern Twitch streamer - in an other way, a shrimp or pillbug will have a completely different worldview too but they all live on the same planet. So narrative matters.

[whereserpentswalk]

For some reason I recently had the idea for mermaids that mate like angler fish. There's something about the image of this mermaid whose like a full person just having a ton of tiny men attached to her by the mouth.

She talks about each of them like they're her beloved husbands but they're very clearly not sentient.

[grayrazor]

My headcanon is that the inconsistent performance of the Ferengi D'Kora-class is because they're relatively modular, the equivalent of an East Indiaman from real life, or a Nemoidian Lucrehulk from Star Wars.

Depending on how wealthy and aggressive the owner is, it could be an unarmed bulk freighter, or so overgunned that it could slug it out with a Klingon Vor'cha or Federation Galaxy-class and utterly obliterate a Cardassian Galor.

[redd956]

I need world-building questions for royalty and class systems, please

Sure!

Worldbuilding questions to get the creative juices flowing 32

Theme: Class Systems

Now it's been awhile since I've researched or worldbuilt this stuff, so I did some side research to make sure I'm bright on ideas

Now class systems are very very complicated. I'm not very confident in them myself, so at the end I've added some nice videos to watch, thing to research on, and places to start.

How many classes is your society divided into? Is it a feudalism system, caste system, slave system, or something else?

Can all classes take part in the ruling class? If not what classes can? What roles in society can rule? Is the ruling class its own class?

How is the population distributed by class? How is the hierarchy built? Who has it the worst? Who has it the best?

What advantages does each class have? What disadvantages does each class have? What decides who's in what class?

Class systems are not just divided by economic status. In fact they can be divided by many things at once. So what divides yours? (race, economic status, birthright, religious, species, magic branches)

What helps keep lower classes low? What helps keep higher classes high?

What type of change is occuring? Is it more peaceful? More chaotic? More violent? Is it looking successful?

What cultural divides play into classes? How does culture differ across classes?

What group controls the society? How does this group do so? What could happen to cause this group to lose this power?

If the current ruling class was overthrown what would the aftermath be like?

Not every class runs off of our five modern ones. Go back in time and class systems change sometimes drastically. So name your class levels. Where do these names derive from?

What class systems did the society go through in the past? How does this affect their modern day?

How do class groups view each other? Is there discrimination? Is there privilege?

What decides a class' value? What makes them that valuable?

What does education, economic status, and potential religion do for the class system?

What does the current events; war, sickness, alliances, etc; affect the class system? (These events tend to be great moments for classes to change)

Extra:

Class Systems to study

Our Modern Social Class

Medeival Social Class

Ancient China Classes

Caste Systems of India throughout time

Japanese castes

Native American Roles

Amazing Videos

How Class Systems Fall: https://youtu.be/bbkSim9iaOQ

How Class Systems Work: https://youtu.be/8tjvul5e1y4

Historical Moments

Russian Prohibition

French Revolution

Any bit of Soviet History, really I'm not kidding, the formation and fall of the USSR was a big class system historical fuckery mess

American Progressive Era

Republic Era of Qing China

Finally Books that have good class system worldbuilding

Grishaverse Book Series

Watership Down

Tale of Two Cities

[writerbeemedina]

Don’t get me wrong, werewolves are freakin awesome, but I think what a lot of people don’t realize is that wolves aren’t hostile to their own pack as media makes it seem. There’s no “alpha wolf” ; if there are wolves in charge, they’re usually the parents of the other wolves. In other words, wolf packs are one big happy family.

But HYENAS on the other hand?? Testosterone-fueled female domination. The smaller males are the lowest ranking in the hierarchy and they are stuck like this. They get food that females don’t want. Hyenas eat their prey alive and crunch bones. Cubs often suffocate before they can even be born because they are birthed through the female hyena’s unique clitoris, otherwise known as a pseudo-penis — and yes, giving birth through this is incredibly painful.

Even though spotted hyenas are technically not related to canidae, I still think they should be considered as werecreatures in fiction. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.