#the scale of what this has turned into. the amount of research and worldbuilding work I have done this year.

[meanderings0ul]

About to hit the 25k mark on my current Big Project. Am currently simultaneously:

A) tearing up at the scene I am typing

and

B) genuinely panicking about how many years this thing is probably going to take me to finish

[wordsnstuff]

Guide to Writing Fantasy

PLEASE REBLOG | Tumblr suppresses posts with links :/

Patreon || Ko-Fi || Masterlist || Work In Progress

–

How Much World Building?

World building is highly subjective, and at the end of the day, to each is his/her own. However, as with anything, there should be balance. Even the most dense, infamously complicated fantasy worlds are accompanied with characters and conflicts that are just as rich and thoughtful. The amount of world building should be proportional to the amount of development you provide to your characters and plot. Otherwise, you’ve just made up an imaginary kingdom and inserted some of your friends with misspelled names riding horses. 

Basing In Reality/History

Almost all fantasy has some basis or inspiration drawn from real historical periods or culture. It’s a good jumping off point, and there’s a lot of room to work with historical periods that we have few or no firsthand record of. If you’re going to take this route, it’s important that you distinguish between taking creative liberties and giving history the middle finger. If you’re basing your fantasy novel in 1300′s Scotland, there’s something to be said for taking the culture, politics, and technological advancements of that time into account. If you’re going to turn around and decide that’s not the era for your story, just base it in Scotland. Basically, the limitations on the elements of your story that is “based in” historical periods lay in your hands. However, if you market your story as “set in 12th century Scotland”, you’d better be writing 12th century Scotland. 

Approaching Constructed Language

Conlangs are a popular facet to a lot of popular Fantasy/Science Fiction media, specifically those that are adapted to film and television. Although Science Fiction work is typically more invested in constructed languages, Fantasy has a lot of conlangs in the fashion of semi-developed conlangs that are created solely for the purpose of creating diversity within worlds. Game of Thrones and Lord of The Rings are both prime examples of this, although they have, over time, developed their constructed languages into fully learnable/functional dialects in fan service. If you wish to approach this topic, it’s easy to begin by researching basic linguistics, the anatomy of a language, and drawing inspiration from the commonalities between languages of the cultures that inspire your fictional groups.  

Basic World Building Must-Haves

It’s important that when you’re building a world, either from scratch or on the foundation of an existent inspiration, you consider the following elements that make your world three-dimensional and rich:

Politics

Geography

Language

Culture

Expression

Belief Systems

Class

Resources

Values

Power

Creating Magic Systems

This is complicated and nuanced as it gets. When inserting magic into any world, it’s worthy to note how it affects individuals, groups, and large-scale structure. I’ve got more on this in several other posts, so I’ve put my more comprehensive resources here:

Tips on Creating Magic Systems

Putting Limitations On Your Fictional World

Common Struggles

~ Where do I start researching for a story inspired by another culture?... Learn about the culture in depth before taking inspiration. Unfortunately, when most artists “take inspiration” from other cultures, it results in the lazy regurgitation of stereotypes. If you’re going to take inspiration from a culture, especially one that is heavily marginalized by the culture you identify with, come at it from an educated standpoint and work from there. Do not start with a stereotypical version of that culture and then find facts to back up whatever you’ve imagined as you go. Approach it as you would any other topic, with respect and a genuine desire to provide an accurate portrayal in your story. 

~ How do I outline a story that spans multiple books?... Simple. Make the conflict more nuanced and difficult to resolve. Game of Thrones, for example, is a relatively simple concept (several families and powerful figures fighting to rule over the seven kingdoms) made complicated and high-stakes by the addition of several critical aspects, such as the relationships between said families/figures, the commentary on several societal issues such as class, the nature of power, and the human cost of the battle for power, and finally, complicating the politics and geography of the world to foster more obstacles for the key players. 

~ How do I use world building to develop characters?... All characters are a product of their environment, which includes the geographical consequences, the political climate, and the human trends that result from cultural developments over time. All of these aspects come together to form a vibrant, three-dimensional world in which they explore their conflict. Establishing these factors through revealing the consequences they’ve had for the characters is effective (i.e. Game of Thrones), as is developing the characters through exposing them to the specific experience of living in the world you’ve created (i.e. Harry Potter). 

~ How can I avoid harmful cultural appropriation?... Research thoroughly and seek the help of sensitivity readers. People who are specifically qualified to read your work in the search of harmful aspects you may miss are crucial in writing fiction and non-fiction works alike. Start with a good basis of knowledge and background on the subject(s) addressed in your writing, and then get a few outside opinions from people who well and truly know what they’re talking about. 

~ How to make fight scenes between magic users exciting and dynamic... Choreograph stage business effectively and make sure that the flashiness of your description has a purpose. People’s movements in fast-paced, high-stakes action are very telling of their personalities, motivations, and a culmination of their idiosyncrasies. Learn this language of non-verbal communication, the language of the body, and use that to send a subtextual message to your readers. These scenes should be character driven, or they’re just filler for the sake of calling your fantasy novel an action/adventure. 

Other Resources

Guide To Writing Historical Fiction | Part II

Guide To Political World Building

Resources For Worldbuilding

Where To Start With World Building

Tackling Subplots

Tips on Planning A Series

Creating Diverse Otherworld Characters

Tips on Introducing Political Backstory

World Building In Historical Fiction

Resources For Writing (Global) Period Pieces : High Middle Ages & Renaissance

Resources For Writing (Global) Period Pieces : 1600s

Resources For Writing (Global) Period Pieces : 1700s

Resources For Writing (Global) Period Pieces : 1800s

Resources For Fantasy/Mythology Writers

20 Mistakes To Avoid in Fantasy

How To Make The Journey Interesting

General Tips on Chase Scenes

Tips on Writing Fight Scenes

Tips on Writing Chase Scenes

Guide To Writing Forbidden Love

Finding And Fixing Plot Holes

Ultimate Guide To Symbolism

Tips on Balancing Development

Writing Intense Scenes

–

Masterlist | WIP Blog

If you enjoy my blog and wish for it to continue being updated frequently and for me to continue putting my energy toward answering your questions, please consider Buying Me A Coffee, or pledging your support on Patreon, where I offer early access and exclusive benefits for only $5/month.

Shoutout to my $15+ patrons, Jade Ashley and Douglas S.!

[nico-drives-badly]

History 101: Devil Hunter's Edition

Yet another unnecessarily long worldbuilding post copied and pasted directly from my notes app. Enjoy!

Early History

Devil Hunters have existed for as long as human civilization itself, with the earliest examples of “demon warrior” soldiers dating back to the ancient city-states of Mesopotamia. Because of the sheer abundance of open Hell Gates in the millennia prior to Sparda's awakening, humans relied heavily on the protection of demon warriors — an early, militaresque form of devil hunter — to defend their homes and crops. As a result, these early fighters were highly revered in early societies and were ranked among the highest classes in political caste systems, second only to feudal lords and the royal courts. During this era, military soldiers were often recruited to fight demons just as often as they were to fight other humans, which is why the terms for “soldier/warrior” and “demon/enemy” were often interchangeable in ancient languages.

The Roman Empire had the most advanced and organized demon warrior system in the world, with Roman gladiators being regularly dispatched throughout the Mediterranean to defend the lands they had conquered. Although the military might of their demon warriors struck fear into the hearts of millions, it was what ultimately led to their downfall; after Sparda's awakening 2000 years ago, the need for devil hunters decreased drastically as the number of open Hell Gates around the world began to dwindle, causing the caste system in the Roman Empire to buckle. Some historians even argue that it was Sparda himself who jump-started the fall of the Roman Empire, with some comparing the fables surrounding Mundus to the evil emperor Nero.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, devil hunters continued to thrive, albeit at a much smaller scale. Some feudal lords began to hire individual devil hunters to protect their property, and devil hunters in turn began to advertise their services in exchange for money; this form of devil hunting became known as the competitive model. Other land owners began to defend themselves in the event of a demon attack, and they began to defend other people's property in exchange for mutual protection, rather than for profit; this form of devil hunting became known as the centralized model. Over the next two millennia, countries would widely adopt one or both of these models on a national scale, which would eventually evolve into the modern iterations we have today.

In countries with a modern competitive model, thousands of devil hunting businesses across the nation compete with one another for profit. Monopolization, backroom deals, and political lobbying are all major issues under this model. In countries with a modern centralized model, devil hunters are grouped into different “departments” that collectively serve each district, similar to a police or fire department, and are subsidized by taxpayers. Disorganization, poor leadership, and abuse of power are all major issues under this model. Both models are infamous for their corruption and their historically unequal protection of marginalized populations.

Devil Hunting in Nascita

Nascita was the first country in the world to adopt a fluid model for devil hunting — a modern approach that allows each city or district to choose which model to adopt, creating a “fluid” mosaic of both models throughout the country. Although the major issues surrounding both systems still exist under the fluid model, it allows cities to change and adapt their devil hunting model to fit their individual needs, and several countries have since adopted Nascita's fluid model as a result.

During national emergency events, such as the sudden emergence of Hell Breaches following the Qliphoth incident in Life Rewritten, the Prime Minister will coordinate devil hunting efforts in each district via civil defense radio. Although this method is effective for short-term emergencies, Hell Breaches will likely become a long-term issue in Nascita due to the Qliphoth having severely weakened the human-hell barrier in the country; this means that, although Prime Minister Hartman's emergency communication efforts are working well for now, he will eventually have to create a more permanent method for reporting Hell Breaches in the near future.

Districts in Nascita include:

Red Grave City District (Southern Nascita)

Capulet District (Southwest Nascita)

Tumult City District (Southeast Nascita)

Sapere City District (Central Nascita)

Montague District (Northern Nascita)

Impetus City District (Northwest Nascita)

Rural District (Northeast Nascita)

Island Districts (Fortuna + Mallet Island)

Devil May Cry

Devil May Cry is a special case in that, because of Dante's alleged relation to Sparda, people from all across the country will personally request his services by name. In contrast to other for-profit devil hunting businesses, which typically only work within their district, Devil May Cry has completed at least one mission in every district of Nascita; in fact, word of DMC has spread so far that it remains the only devil hunting business in Nascitian history to complete a mission outside of the country (Dumary Island in South America).

Despite this, however, Dante has recently decided to only take missions in the Red Grave City District, leaving the rest for Nero and the mobile branch.

Humans and Orbs

Because of their close interactions (and even closer near-death experiences) with demons throughout history, humans have naturally adapted to not only optimize their civil defense against demons, but to utilize any and all resources they can obtain from demon carcasses. Demon orbs are a prime example of this. Thousands of years before the dawn of modern medicine, humans were using demon orbs as herbal remedies for a variety of health conditions, and even modern studies have shown that certain chemicals found in demon orbs are analogous to the active ingredients in various over-the-counter drugs.

Here is a breakdown of each orb and their use to humans:

Red Orbs

As you can see, most orbs have medicinal properties in humans, which in turn makes them highly valuable. Red orbs, on the other hand, have no health benefit whatsoever — in fact, for centuries, they were considered completely worthless! The event of a demon exploding into red orbs upon its death was once nothing more than an annoying inconvenience, like a miner digging for gold only to find nothing but useless rock. But it was in this worthlessness that red orbs eventually found a new purpose among the devil hunting community, particularly weaponsmiths.

You see, weaponsmiths often reserved their best weapons for only the most experienced and worthy of customers; after all, you don't want some young punk breaking the finest sword you've ever forged! But it wasn't always easy to tell the newbie devil hunters from the experienced ones, especially when dealing with travelers from outside of the village. Because of this, weaponsmiths began to require proof of a devil hunter's skill before selling their wares to them, and because demon bodies instantly dissolved into red orbs at the moment of death, the most readily available evidence of a devil hunter's skill was — you guessed it — how many red orbs they had in their possession. The more red orbs a devil hunter had, the more experienced they were, and the more likely they would receive good-quality weapons from the weaponsmiths.

Eventually, this practice evolved into the red orb currency we know of today, where basic mortal weapons cost the least amount of red orbs while advanced magical weapons cost the most. Red orbs still have no real value in the “real world”, but for devil hunters, it has effectively become their tool for bartering.

Green Orbs

Green orbs are used as a natural alternative to pain relievers. It's active ingredients are acetaminophen and menthol. Green orbs can be applied directly to the skin to help reduce inflammation, similarly to an ice pack (menthol), or it can be crushed and consumed orally to relieve muscle soreness and reduce fever, similar to Tylenol (acetaminophen).

Green orbs should NOT be used on an open wound. A common misconception in the DMCverse is that it can be used as a substitute for Neosporin, but that simply isn't the case. Rubbing a Green Orb on an open wound will only irritate the skin and increase the risk of infection.

White Orbs

White orbs can be used as a natural stimulant, akin to green tea extract. “White orb extract” and “white orb powder” are particularly popular finds in the nutrition aisle of grocery stores, as well as a popular ingredient in convenience store energy shots. Recent studies have even shown that white orbs, when used in small dosages, are less likely to damage your heart compared to regular caffeine, making it a healthier alternative to traditional energy products.

But don't get too excited; more research still needs to be done before white orbs can safely replace caffeine in all of our favorite energy drinks. There's still a lot of concern among scientists about potential drug interactions with prescription stimulants and with artificial sweeteners such as aspartame.

Blue Orbs

Blue orbs are different in that they provide no immediate health benefit upon consumption. This, for the longest time, led for blue orbs to be disregarded as useless outside of the devil hunting community, just like with red orbs. However, in recent decades, scientists have found that blue orbs contain essential vitamins and minerals that can be taken as part of a daily regimen to promote long-term health. It's not uncommon, therefore, to see multivitamins and children's gummies touting “made with all-natural blue orbs” on their labels.

Despite having a plethora of essential vitamins and minerals, however, there is no concrete evidence that taking blue orbs as a supplement every day actually increases longevity. But given how many health benefits *do* come from proper vitamin intake, you can understand why this orb is so popular among pharmaceuticals.

Purple Orbs

While similar in color to blue orbs, purple orbs have an entirely different chemical makeup; rather than vitamins and minerals, purple orbs are packed with hormones, particularly testosterone and estrogen. While testosterone and estrogen are considered the “male hormone” and “female hormone” in humans, both hormones are readily found in demons regardless of gender, and when isolated in a lab, these natural hormones can be manufactured into drugs used for everything from hormone replacement therapy to safer alternatives to anabolic steroids.

Talk to your doctor before taking PURPLE ORBS. Do not drive or operate machinery until you know how PURPLE ORBS affects you. And please, don't be like that guy on TikTok who just straight-up swallowed a purple orb and had to get his stomach pumped afterward. Yes, that is a thing that actually happened in the DMCverse. Capcom told me everything about it.

Yellow/Gold Orbs

Yellow orbs — or gold orbs, depending on what region you are from — contain ammonium carbonate, an ingredient commonly found in smelling salts. When a yellow orb is cracked open, this chemical is released, forcing an unconscious person awake. Yellow orbs were commonly used throughout the Victorian era to treat fainting spells in women, and are popular among athletes in modern times for their ability to increase alertness.

While yellow orbs can be the difference between life or death for a hybrid demon, the effects of yellow orbs on humans are much less profound. While it can help increase alertness and prevent fainting, it does not truly “revive” a human being, and it is completely ineffective at treating serious injuries such as concussions.

The Origin of Style Rankings

The history of style rankings is a rocky one, for sure. No one knows exactly when the sacred tradition of taunting your enemies and showing off your skills through cinematic flair became prevalent, nor when the grading system for judging a devil hunter's style was established; no one even knows who coined the term “style rank”, exactly. All we do know is that the concept of style has been an integral part of devil hunting for at least the past 200 years, with the earliest mentions of the word “style” dating back to the late 18th century.

Historians believe that style ranking began as a friendly competition between fellow devil hunters, who would show off their best skills on the battlefield and then determine whose skills were the greatest. These competitions were particularly popular among veteran devil hunters, leading some historians to argue that this seemingly fun activity was actually used as a coping mechanism for PTSD, similarly to how the characters in M*A*S*H used humor to distract themselves from the horrors of war.

Over time, the popularity of these informal contests began to steadily increase, and various rules and scoring mechanics were developed by style advocates. Although no historian can agree on who invented the grading system for style rank, they all know who helped popularize it: Isabella Montoya Velasquez, better known as The Nightmare of El Diablo. Isabella's fiery presence on the field, coupled with her historical achievement as the first woman of color to become a devil hunting chief in Nascita, made her a popular favorite in style challenges, and people from all over the country would come to Tumult City just to compete against her.

In an effort to make things fair, Isabella incorporated the then-niche grading system to judge each devil hunter's style level, with D being the lowest rank and A being the highest. For undisclosed reasons, Isabella also added an additional rank to the scale — the S rank. In the event that someone outperformed another competitor who achieved S rank, Isabella would tack on another S and give them an SS rank. And if someone managed to outperform Isabella herself (something which was nearly impossible to do in her prime, might I add), Isabella would add yet another S and give them the highly-coveted SSS rank.

When asked one day how she came up with the letter “S” for the highest rankings, Isabella responded that it was originally supposed to stand for “Sparda”, but once she started adding additional S's to the rank, this meaning was no longer relevant, so it “could mean anything, at this point. [cackling laughter]” This is why the words associated with each letter rank change from game to game; they don't really stand for anything, so devil hunters in turn can make them stand for whatever they want.

[clarste]

listen-and-reflect replied to your post:

Um, just wondering, why aren't you around much...

… I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on Arknights. I’ve paid no attention to it whatsoever, but if it impresses you, I’m curious.

To boil it down to its component elements, I’d describe Arknights as “urban fantasy catgirl tower defense gacha.” If any of those words viscerally disgust you, there’s probably not much I can do to convince you otherwise, but personally that was enough to intrigue me. And what I found when I tried it surprised me in a good way. Honestly I’ve been struggling for like a month for how to talk about this, but for the purposes of this post I’ll boil it down to three major elements: Aesthetics, Worldbuilding, and Gameplay.

First of all the Aesthetics. Might as well start with a picture or three:

For the record, yes, 90% of the characters in this game are women, and there’s no explanation for that, that’s just how it is. I am 100% fine with that because I am a Touhou fan. Anyway, what I want to draw attention to is the way these women are portrayed. IE: they are posed/costumed to be seen as “cool” and while they certainly aren’t unattractive, it isn’t in a horny way that emphasizes their breasts or butts or anything. It’s not a perfect “practical clothing only,” I mean high heels aren’t great for fighting and there are other characters who show more skin, but the philosophy carries through in all the official art: these are cool, capable women who are never once reduced to sex objects for the male gaze. I respect that.

Also you don’t get to marry any of them which is a huge plus in my book.

It’s hard to say any more on that without moving on to the Worldbuilding. Basically, the world of Arknights is both blessed and cursed with a magical rock called Originium which is the source of all their problems. First of all it’s a miraculous power source, the resource that fuels the engine of modern society. Not only that but it can be used as a medium to cast actual magic spells (which is of course a well-studied phenomenon that’s treated as a science). On the other hand, its very presence warps the environment, causing large-scale city-destroying natural disasters on a regular basis. And more importantly for the conceit of the narrative, it can get in your blood, eventually causing an incurable disease called Oripathy which involves your body slowing turning into crystal from the inside out. Basically magic rock cancer. Later stages of it involve visible “crystal lesions” growing on the skin, but even internal growths can have serious medical problems. This is sometimes shown in character designs too:

This is important to the worldbuilding because “The Infected” are a major source of discrimination and political unrest. Oripathy is only mildly contagious (you’re more likely to get it from mishandling the rocks directly), but the stigma of it is such that anyone with Oripathy is immediately quarantined, exiled, or worse. Both the player characters and their enemies are generally Infected, with the “good guys” (scare quotes intended) being a medical institute that takes in patients to treat the symptoms and vaguely hoping for a cure someday, while the “bad guys” are revolutionaries violently overthrowing the society that treats them as subhuman. There are analogies you could make to HIV, leprosy, or heck even current events with COVID-19.

Anyway, I say all this so I can turn to the in-game character profiles and how they’re structured. Specifically, they’re all medical reports written by the doctors of your institute (who are themselves playable characters who are Medics in-game):

(Incidentally everyone uses codenames in this game). Anyway, my point is that these are not neutral, objective “word-of-god” profiles, these are the facts as they appear to some particular person in-universe. In Touhou terms, these are written by Akyuu: some clinical facts mixed in with rumors and speculation. And I absolutely love that.

More than that though, we get this amazing invention:

Why yes, that is an in-game chart of all the characters’ relationships, grouped by people who belong to the same organization, that fills in as you play. And yes, raising trust with characters by using them does fill in the names of people close to them who you haven’t met yet, as well as new connections to unknown people. Who is friends with Croissant?! I must know!

Er... Anyway, I think having this chart in-game is quite frankly a genius move on the part of the developers, since it gets you immediately invested in seeing how the characters are connected. But wait, there’s more! When you pull a dupe from the gacha, you get a little token that can be used to upgrade a character slightly, pretty normal. But even these little tokens have tiny bits of story on them!

These are the items that are important to these characters, and they can change the way you see them. Every little thing in this game has story attached to it! It’s incredible! And they actually tell stories with these things. There’s one in particular that fascinates me (and others), but unfortunately I have exactly 0 of the characters involved so I’ll have to pull quotes from the wiki.

There are three characters from a faction called Rhine Lab: Ifirit, Saria, and Silence. The details are pretty vague, but basically Ifrit is an Infected child with incredible Originium channeling powers who’s been experimented on, and Saria and Silence are two doctors who were involved in those experiments but had a falling out after an experiment gone wrong. But how does the game tell you this? Well, lots of ways. Saria’s profile is the most explicit:

The relationship between Lady Saria and Rhine Lab is very complicated. Though all Rhine Lab Operators who work with Rhodes Island show some amount of respect for Lady Saria, Rhine Lab's Medic Operator, Silence, shows nothing but hatred for her. At the same time, Lady Saria appears unsurprised by Silence's feelings toward her. Whenever Lady Saria attempts to talk with Caster Operator Ifrit, Silence gets in the way. According to available information, the animosity between Saria and Silence stems from an experiment at Rhine Lab led by Silence. The experiment was an unfortunate failure. Lady Saria acted alone in suppressing the experimental materials that had gone out of control. Similarly, because of this experiment's mishaps, Lady Saria left Rhine Lab. It is not known why she chose to cooperate with Rhodes Island after leaving Rhine Lab.

But then you have Ifrit and Silence’s tokens:

A long novel telling a legendary story. It is badly burned and you can only barely make out the words.

A patterned feather decoration. This ineloquent researcher from Liberi shows her sincerity by gifting her own feathers.

But oh gee, guess who are wearing feather tokens in the designs?  (it’s Ifrit and Saria)

Also here’s Silence just so you aren’t left wondering what she looks like:

Anyway, the point is that the writers know how to throw tiny bits of characterization and hints of an untold story into literally everything in this game, and that is exactly what I live for.

Oh yeah, there’s also Gameplay.

Game’s pretty fun:

I enjoy it as a game too.

[partly-cloudyskies]

1, 12, 16, 18 + one I didnt pick but you secretly want to talk about

This has run long so I’m putting it under a break. Some thought about my current writing projects, an old abandoned project and, uh, word counts below!

1) Welp I got three WIPs:

This is How We Grow: My first real attempt to fully commit to the heightened romance and emotion of an idealized pastoral setting but sometimes there are shadow monsters plus this also acts as an excuse to see more of Soup’s weblena art.

The Longest Shadows: A future fic where Lena becomes a badass shadow witch and Webby learns that the McDuck legacy is a complicated thing rather than the unalloyed good that she unthinkingly embraced as a youth (Yeah how you doin season 3).

The Glass Factory: A Maebea NITW AU where Mae and Bea find and cling to each other out of a shared sense of alienation as they bear witness to an economically depressed city in its final moments before the shockwave of gentrification turns it into something unrecognizable and hostile (YES I’m still working on it!!)

12) A dumb line from an old WIP... there are so many abandoned projects that are like, two chapters and then a separate file full of quotes that I thought were cool and then I never looked back on them again. I’m sure those hold up. Let me check my old writings folder...

OH NO. I have it and I hate it but I’m going to post it anyway:

Detta rises over the Blackfuse mercenary as he struggled with the debris crushing him. Short even for a goblin, she looms over him like a Titan contemplating the fleeting life of mortals. She raises one hand, closed in a fist that sparks and howls with the wind.

“I’m gonna put a hurricane in your skull. See what it does to your brain.”

FOR CONTEXT, this is an old WIP from, like, 2016. It was a World of Warcraft fic that I REALLY wanted to write. It took place during the Panderia campaign and was set entirely in Bilgewater Harbor, an island city of goblins that is almost entirely empty in-game but I always liked its chaotic design. It was about Detta, a goblin Shaman who had given up adventuring and became a freelance problem solver in Bilgewater. She had a Storm Elemental she named Dizzy who she used as a secretary. One day Korkron troopers loyal to Hellscream bursts into her office and tells her they want to hire her to track down a criminal. Tozz, one of the troopers, is assigned to stay with her to make sure she stays on task. Eventually they would find the criminal only to learn he’s a Twilight’s Hammer cultist who had been in Orgrimmar instructing Hellscream’s forces on the secrets of Dark Shamanism and Hellscream was hiding this by killing everyone involved. You can take it from me that it was VERY lore compliant while filling in the spaces that the game devs had left CRIMINALLY underdeveloped and was going to be a dramatic story in the vein of film noir, with intrigue and divided loyalties and shifting motivations all on the eve of war and rebellion and WoW DESERVED to have better story than it did and you know what I’ve decided that is actually a brilliant line and I am PROUD of it and --

You get the picture. Next question!

16) Hm... this is a question that I don’t really have an answer for because all worldbuilding is good worldbuilding if you ask me. I think the thing about worldbuilding is that a good 90% of it doesn’t make it to the page and we kind of struggle with that because if you have all this research material then you might feel compelled to splash it all out on the page so you’d have something to show for all the time you spent. But that’s not what it’s for, it’s so that you have something to refer to when you need it. It’s the big part of the iceberg no one else gets to see. So maps? Spreadsheets? Research? None of it is ridiculous. All of it is good.

I guess the most of it I’ve ever done was for the novel that I wrote. I had a lot of material for that. I drew a map and I even tried to keep it to scale by sketching it out using travel route lines in Google Maps. I guess that is a little ridiculous, but I’ve no regrets.

18) I hate title and I don’t really spend much time on them. I certainly don’t keep track of how many titles I come up with before settling on one. I tend to be direct, I think.

Glass Factory is called Glass Factory because there’s a glass factory in NITW and my story takes place in an art studio. There’s an art studio in Alexandria called the Torpedo Factory, and that and its surroundings is what inspired that story, so Glass Factory. ez.

Longest Shadows is about legacy, the shadows cast by Scrooge and Magica and how Webby and Lena fall under those shadows. Plus it’s Lena so there’s almost a 100% chance any story with her has some kind of shadow reference in the title. So that’s that.

This is How We Grow was probably the most agonizing of my recent WIPs in terms of title. I think it’s a little clunky. But it’s about the two main characters growing and it’s... there’s farming. Plants grow. So... uh, that’s it. I might not be a huge fan of the title but I’ve never considered changing it. Never look back, when it comes to titles. That’s my motto.

Now for a question of my choosing...

14) I can knock out 500 words pretty easily on a good day, like on a real good day I can do a 1000 in half an hour. I’ve had times where I got an idea in the morning, wrote 2000 words about it, edited it by lunch and posted it by evening. But good days are few and far between and mostly I just put in a paragraph or two where I can.

I used to be very obsessive about word count. Like, I still look at it today but now it’s just like “oh, that’s how many words are in this file, okay”, but years ago I practically lived by it. I think part of it was me chasing that NaNoWriMo dragon, which was something I used to be pretty focused on. Now that I’m older I wonder if NaNoWriMo actually helps or does more to hurt aspiring writers. I mean, it’s not like there’s any external consequences to falling short but when you’re young and you’re looking to commit yourself to something, it sucks real hard when you inevitably fall short and it can be discouraging.

These days I’m more in a “what’s important is that you’ve written something” frame of mind. It doesn’t matter if it’s four pages or it’s literally a single word. I’ve had single word days. And it’s okay! It’s okay to write a single word. Progress is progress, when it comes to writing. Now, if I look at the word count, it’s because a chapter I’m in is running longer than I would have liked and maybe I should consider splitting it in two or something because I am the kind of person who likes the idea of a uniform amount of words per paragraph thank you very much. Beyond that, I don’t pay word count much mind and I think I’m a happier writer for it.

So yeah!

[script-a-world]

Clearly there are some settings which make no sense scientifically. But how do I decide when to intentionally ignore reality, can't bother to do research, don't understand research, and thus create scientifically impossible places? When are such things considered be offensive or overused cliche or have a reader point out the impossibility and can't get into the story? I'm guessing some of this might be structural issues instead of world building?

Tex: One of the perils of attempting to write about highly technical subjects is that you run into the issue of not understanding your writing. I do raise a nominal objection as your first sentence, because sensibility is a sliding scale based on one’s familiarity with a given subject. I don’t know crap about, say, textile art (however much I might have bluffed readers in the past - no, no, this is just good googling skills on my end), but that doesn’t mean the textile arts are an inherently incomprehensible subject.

Scientifically, automobiles were once thought to be insensible. Scientifically, phones were thought to be a flight of fancy. Scientifically, 3D printing was improbable. Scientifically, quantum computing was the stuff of sci-fi nerds who just wanted to slap the “quantum” label on everything.

And yet we are now on the verge of robotic vehicles, mostly functional smartwatches, laser printing cells (PDF), and quantum computers (VentureBeat, IBM).

So I would argue that the insensibility of a setting would be due mostly to, yes, a structural issue - on the part of the author. No matter what you put into your world, internal consistency is key; nothing, no matter how ostensibly outlandish, will make sense if you contradict yourself.

I’ll volley a few questions back to you:

“[...] when to intentionally ignore reality” - Are you ignoring reality entirely, or just parts of it? Why? How does that decision benefit your world? How does it detract from your world?

“Can’t bother to do research” - Is it because you are discouraged by the breadth of your comprehension of a subject, compared to the subject’s depth? Or is it because of something else?

“Don’t understand research” - Is this because you don’t understand the academic papers that turn up in your search results, or because you have a fundamental lack of or misunderstanding of the given subject? Or is it because of something else?

“When are such things considered to be offensive or overused cliche” - As someone who intentionally arranges their studying around the plausibilities of the future, I would quite frankly be delighted to see more conceptual stretches of the imagination in this regard, as do many others on this blog, and beyond it. Why have you already passed judgement on the offensiveness or clichéd-ness of incorporating scientific things? Is this related to your other comments?

“[...] or have a reader point out the impossibility and can’t get into the story?” - If you are writing to please a specific individual or demographic, you are inevitably always going to fall short, because it’s genuinely impossible to meet every single item on a group’s wishlist without devoting your life to it (not an entirely worthy pursuit, in my opinion, but alas). What made you decide to be so concerned over the potential reaction to your stories that you worry about it before the story is even written?

I think I will put the majority of my curiosity’s weight on the last bullet point, as I’m seeing similar themes with the other portions of your question. It’s a fruitless endeavour to tie yourself into knots over a possible (not necessarily probable!) reaction - and quite likely from a stranger, to boot. Education is a relatively easy situation to fix, so long as you’re patient with yourself; dealing with anxieties over readers is… not so easy.

I can really only recommend that you take a close look at the goals of your worldbuilding, and see where you contradict yourself - once you have that in hand, it’s a relatively simple yes/no process of what concepts you want to keep. If the issue of decision comes from a lack of understanding, then make a note to yourself to seek out either the million wikis we Pylons utilize ourselves like any other worldbuilder, or to chalk it up as a genuine lack of context.

Please understand that even someone who’s dedicated their life to a certain aspect of science won’t know everything about it - that’s the point of research! We’re constantly asking ourselves questions, and pushing the envelope of known boundaries. Star Wars has lightsabers, but we don’t need to know how they work; likewise with holodecks in Star Trek. So long as an audience is reasonably entertained with the least amount of head-scratching, you can get away with handwaving quite a lot.

Lockea: On a scale between Star Trek and Star Wars, how “hard” is your science fiction?

I mention that mostly to illustrate that science fiction exists on a continuum, wherein science fiction with more “science” than “fiction” drives a story towards the harder end rather than the softer end. Also, a story’s place on the continuum will change based on what we know and understand about science.

I feel like everyone always beats me to saying all the important stuff about questions, so I’ll just give a few thoughts from my personal experience as a science fiction fan with two engineering degrees and a thesis about robots on the moon (yes really, I wrote my thesis on AI for moon robots). I really, really, love the creativity of science fiction writers. I think so often in defending the genre, we can get caught up in saying things like “science fiction predicted XYZ!” Well, sure, I may have studied Isaac Asimov’s three laws of robotics in my introduction to engineering ethics course, but I was also greedily reading my way through “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins at the same time. The fact that I sincerely doubt Panem will ever happen didn’t dampen my enjoyment of Katniss’s story. It was a fun read and it gave my friends and I something to talk about that wasn’t “feasibility of Battlestar Galactica” during our daily lunches.

The thing about writing science fiction is that, without a doubt, there will be someone who knows more than you about a topic who reads your story. Most of the time, I end up being that someone since everyone likes to talk about Skynet and robots taking over the world to a roboticist who sincerely refers to artificial intelligence as artificial stupidity. Y'all are seriously overestimating the field, my friends. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” even as I thought how impossible Project Insight would be. Honestly, something every READER of science fiction needs to make peace with is the fact that writers will get something wrong. Writers, despite their best efforts, are not always going to understand that a facial recognition algorithm will fail if you introduce tiny amounts of random noise and are thus going to treat The Algorithm™ as infallible in your crime drama novel.

It’s not the writer’s fault, though.

That deserves to be on its own line. It is not YOUR fault if you get something wrong. Would it be nice if science literacy was just better all around? Of course! But it’s not your fault if your science literacy isn’t up to snuff enough to parse the article I cited above. It’s also not your job. Your job as the writer is to tell the most interesting story you can and to maintain your own internal rules and logic such that the reader never breaks the willing suspension of disbelief.

I watch Star Wars and get really into the light saber fight scenes and forget that light sabers are basically impossible to make. Star Wars has the Force, which is basically magic, and that’s okay. Really. I KNOW it’s not possible, but I still have a lot of fun watching it!

So yeah, write that story about how the robots are going to take over the world. I’ll probably enjoy reading it even as I laugh off my friends telling me that I will be the first to die in the robot apocalypse (of course I will -- I have five robots in my living room alone).

Constablewrites: Tone and consistency are the biggest pieces of this for me. If it’s the kind of story where the answer to “How does this work?” is usually a detailed and plausible explanation, then getting an answer later that is implausible or slapdash will stand out more. But if it’s the kind of story where the answer to “How does this work?” is “You push that button and it goes whoosh” from the start, my expectations adjust accordingly. (It’s possible to have the latter version in a story that is mostly the former, frequently when it’s played for last. Again, tone is key.)

So yeah, a lot of this is execution and the way the story sticks to the rules it sets for itself, and also how central the implausibility is to the story. A realistic thriller that relies on cartoon logic for a background bit might be a little jarring, but not nearly as much as a realistic thriller that relies on cartoon logic to set up its main showdown. The more central it is to the story, the more consistency and accuracy matters. Learning how to balance this can take some practice and some insight from beta readers.

[the-ice-sculpture]

March 2021 Books I Read

*assume all the book are aimed at an adult audience unless specified otherwise in the description

Thanks a Lot, Mr. Kibblewhite: My Story by Roger Daltrey ★★★☆☆ 🎧 Non-fiction autobiography of the frontman of The Who. 368 pages. A more down-to-earth rock autobiography than the usual, with reflections on the era, his life, and some of the more controversial things that happened. The audiobook was narrated by the author really well, but coming at it from the angle of someone just interested in the era as a whole, it didn’t give me what I wanted from it (though, admittedly, that’s not really a fault of the book) and I didn’t find it as gripping as others I’ve read. Still done well though and it sparked some ideas, which was the main point.

The Flower Girls by Alice Clark-Platts ★★★★☆ (3.5*) 🎧 Thriller. 339 pages. The main character, along with her older sister, was involved in the murder of a toddler when they were young children. It has interesting themes that question the justice system (particularly regarding underaged offenders), morality, whether ‘evil’ exists, and the lack of integrity in tabloid journalism. Another where the audiobook was narrated really well. It’s dark, obviously, but it doesn’t go into too much explicit detail about what happened. Has good use of multi-POV. It gets fairly tense though a little predictable, but I liked that this one had more going on with what it discusses than your standard thriller. Ending could’ve been more satisfying but it still wasn’t a bad ending.

On Power: My Journey Through the Corridors of Power and How You Can Get More Power by Gene Simmons  ★★☆☆☆ 🎧 Non-fiction autobiography/business management/self-help. 163 pages. I wanted to get an insight into the marketing strategies of KISS (since they’ve always been way more of a brand than a band) for music history research purposes, but that’s not what this book is. It’s exactly what the title says it is (I’m not sure why that surprised me either). Mostly common sense rather than anything concrete. It can be very, uh, boomer-ish, though it does raise a valid point with how if people want to make a good difference in the world then they’ll need money and power to do it on a large scale. Did it give an insight into certain philosophies? Yes. The world of music? Not so much. Not directly anyway.

The Gutter Prayer by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan (The Black Iron Legacy #1)  ★★★★☆ (3.5*s) 📖 Fantasy. 512 pages. This deserves more attention (it only has a couple of thousand ratings on GR). It’s a bit dark, but I wouldn’t call it grimdark. There’s a small cast of characters: a man turning to stone, a thief occasionally involuntarily slammed by visions, a ghoul who eats people, an investigator, and a scholar who are all linked together due to a heist gone wrong.  There's really just two main POVs and a few other minor ones so keeping track of characters isn’t too much work. It’s all set in the same city so the worldbuilding isn’t too daunting. The writing style is great – it reads very vividly and smoothly, and it has a unique vibe compared to other fantasy stories. The world isn’t that technologically far behind ours, and there are a lot of humanoid monsters very much present. It can be a bit gory and has definite horror influences (think men made of wax, eldritch worm creatures, body parts in jars etc), but it’s not to the extent that it'd bother the average reader. The balancing of action and character was well done and it’s the most original new fantasies I’ve read in a while.

Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter ★★★★★ (4.5*s) 📖 Thriller/horror. 548 pages. I don’t want to say too much because it’s better going into it partially blind, but I will say this: it’s very graphic and a fair amount of reviewers say it gave them nightmares. A lot of the content is dark and massively fucked up, and that’s either going to entice people or put them off. Plot: involves the family of a missing young woman and a theme of ‘is it better to know what happened or remain ignorant?’. I was fairly meh for around the first 25% of this book. Then there was an ‘oh shit’ moment. Followed by several more ‘oh shit!‘ moments at increasing volume. Then the last 75% was ridiculously gripping. Amazingly tense, very fast to read writing style (might’ve helped with not inspecting potential plot holes too closely though), great character development, and it makes you fear for the characters and feel for them.

The Last Family in England by Matt Haig ★★★☆☆ (2.5*s) 🎧 Contemporary fiction. 352 pages. A suburban domestic drama from the perspective of a dog. Labradors have a pact that they should protect their human families at all costs. They believe whenever a family falls apart it’s either because the dog didn’t do its job or because the family didn’t have a dog. But other dog breeds world over have abandoned the pact in favour of hedonism. It’s quirky and charming, even funny in places with how seriously the main character (well, dog) takes himself, but I found all the family drama slightly tedious and most of the characters not very likable. It also wasn’t the light-hearted read I was wanting/expecting it to be.

[insanescriptist]

I've been wondering for awhile, but between you and Umei, how much of the worldbuilding and information on How Things Work in all the stories is stuff you knew already and stuff you spent a lot of time looking up and investigating? Because it's crazy how detailed all these fics are and its amazingly good

Hmm.. it varies by topic? Generally is it common knowledge (ie does it exist in that world/cannon), hobby knowledge, personal knowledge, inferred knowledge (ie if this is this then that implies that), specific knowledge and what’s needed to be known by the character/audience that determines it. There’s stuff that gets left out that we figure out and I’ll give an example of it later.

Some things we can’t get out of researching, like Umei had to research a lot of the historical customs. Who’s allowed to wear what (status symbols), levels of formality, appropriate behavior... That’s specific knowledge. Specific knowledge that has to be known by the characters even. Because you can’t hand wave everything. Plot says otherwise.

Umei probably didn’t have to do much research on the textile manufacturing -the basics are the same world over, get materia, spin thread etc- because she does knit and it’s not hard to find a book on it or more specific all kinds of sites. As an example, yesterday Iz went to Dollar Tree to buy bags to stick some already bought Christmas presents in and found a nice book called The Practical Spinner’s Guide: Silk by Sara Lamb. Which covers what silk is, varieties, properties, blends, how to spin, equipment to spin it on, dying, working with different dyes, weaving, knitting, other applications and how to care for silk in the first hundred pages. At the Dollar Tree. Where everything is a single dollar (and tax). As Umei knits, she might have already had a resource like that handy. That’s hobby knowledge.

As a different example, let’s see... Squalo. Squalo knows sword techniques. But sword techniques are made specific for each blade type. So his adapted longsword using a technique designed for a katana in KHR canon? There’s going to be a difference in effect because the blade length differs, the shape differs and he’s not even holding his sword technically. It’s common sense if you think about it as you can’t use a rapier like a greatsword but Izzy knew about it from personal knowledge. Iz likes her swords. Izzy may have beat various relatives with wooden mock-ups of different types of swords when she likes thirteen or so. To be fair, they had swords too. Personal knowledge.

Then we get to inferred knowledge, which is based on the common knowledge of the world. Like Fire Temple has Monks; Kakuzu kills one of Asuma’s fellow Guardians. So what religion? Well, Hashirama names his techniques off of Buddhist things and the Uchiha have the Shinto covered but Shinto has Priests. So he had to be Buddhist. Buddhism must exist in the Elemental Nations. That one is Easy. Umei may not have figured it out like that but it means that Buddhist philosophy exists.

Compared to ‘Uzumaki sealing affinity’ which has all kinds of doozy implications. This is Izzy’s thought process about it: We get told that it exists, they were great at it, it was their specialty. We don’t get told a single bit of How or Why. We see fuinjutsu used to store things, we see it used to heal, we see it used to mutilate, we see it used to protect, we see it used to contain, we see it break the boundaries of time and space. These examples we see are from Konoha -mostly- who gets their sealing knowledge from the Senju and thus the Uzumaki. So how did the Uzumaki get the knowledge to do all that? Well, clearly they built up on what previous seal masters had done like Minato with Tobirama’s hirashin. So obviously they have an archive, they have a system for that archive to be useful and the work within to be understood,so they have a bloody School! A school that is used from an early age! Not apprentices, but classes full of students learning fuinjutsu. Which still doesn’t tell you How or Why they learned fuinjutsu or continued with it to make it the Uzumaki clan’s signature. Until you realize that they live on an island -limited space- and so have to use ships -limit space- and that based on where they have to be -somewhere between Kiri and Kumo, the villages with the second and arguably third best seal masters (ask me later that is)- they’re geographically at risk of typhoons. How do I know that? Ame. Ame is practically always drowning in rain, so how is all that moisture in the air there? Air currents push clouds against the mountains, squeezing it out before it gets in Kaze no Kuni or even parts of whatever Earth Nation is. So the wind has to blow in from the ocean. If the world of the Elemental Nations is similar enough to ours then the paths the storms travel would be similar -planetary rotation happens at different speeds depending on location from equator- so assuming that the fucked up peninsula that Fire mostly dominates and Tea is on one end up are geographically similar enough for that to be like Florida turned sideways... Anyway, so weather patterns says typhoons exist and Uzu is at risk of them, which is a great reason to have barrier fuinjutsu. Because it’s not just the wind but the water. Uzu’s an island; they can’t risk what farming land they have so the crops and animals need protection. It’s not just the flooding risk but the salt making the land less arable. Food is a concern. Other goods are also a concern. They probably take a lot of mission pay in foodstuffs and things they just don’t have the land to farm. What would they get paid for regularly and in high demand that could potentially require fuinjutsu? Taking care of typhoons. How? Fuinjutsu. What makes the storm a typhoon/hurricane is the amount of energy gathered and moving; not how fast the storm moves but by how much energy it is blowing out. Containment seal to siphon off excess energy -natural chakra exists and heat is energy too- and reduce the Cat 5 to a Cat 1 or 2? Why yes, various island nations that exist south of Fire and Fire would pay much for that, annually. Also an economic reason that Kumo and Kiri later destroy Uzu because with Uzu saving Fire money by preventing massive storm damages, Fire has more money for its shinobi and other war endeavors and while it wasn’t a problem for the Uzumaki when everyone was still warring clans time, with the shinobi clans unified into villages competing on a national scale... sabotaging the enemy nations by making them have to pay for damages natural disasters could cause is a very valid tactic. Hence why fuinjutsu was also the downfall of the Uzumaki; blaming it on the existence of jinchuriki and the Uzumaki as a threat to them is just laziness.

Oh and all that past the ‘Uzumaki have a school of fuinjutsu’ is not needed to be known by the various characters in Direct Thee to Peace so probably won’t be mentioned ever in fic. But this does explain why the Uzumaki within the Senju have more formal experience and expect Hashirama and Tobirama to understand what ‘as formal as with the Daimyo’ means because the Uzumaki obviously have various Daimyo as clients seeing as how they’re protecting various islands and parts of Fire from typhoons. It also means that while the Uzumaki can’t feed themselves without said missions but that doesn’t mean that they’re poor. It is the Senju that are the poor cousins and it shows rather blatantly sometimes. Which Izzy tries not to laugh about too much. It’s mean to Tobirama.

[lilietsblog]

some magic worldbuilding stuff we’ve been talking about

@synesthetic-feline

so let's start with the magic system bc its kind of the basis of everything else so first of all, there's a 'weave' of reality which is like elementary particles in physics except in a different 'dismension' (like sideways from those). It has a certain inherent stability to it, like a living system (sorta like a plant I guess? not an animal, much less anything sentient) it 'feeds' on life, positive emotions, constructive 'vibes' (various degrees of abstraction here, people in the world dont necessarily understand it in detail either) it gets more 'worn' from death, strong 'vibes' of despair, fear, hatred like, on a small scale, some negative emotions actually help it thrive, but when they overpower the positives bad shit happens

more specifically about Bad Shit, there's a 'neighbouring' hell-like dismension with demons. the philosophical implications of this do not exist nope it was just something i thought was cool for the plot. The demons feed on negative emotions, misery and death of people - all the same things that the weave gets damaged by. They arent happy in their home dismension, and really want to get some destroy on in the human one.

Human mages can 'move apart' the weave, creating openings demons can pass through (this is not the only thing they can do ofc this is just one example). Demons make deals with them, etc, etc. Demons' magic power varies a lot, and the summoners had better know what exactly they are going for, because there are lots and los of ways this can go wrong.

At one point in the story the protagonist discovers that there are actually demons just living undercover in the human world, not doing anything malicious, just low key feeding on the negative emotions they can pick up from others. Well, obviously some of them also do bad shit deliberately to make others suffer, but the smarter ones realize its not good for their long-term perspectives, and they don't really have to.

Anyway, if there's a lot of bad stuff happening - wars, particularly civil; epidemics; badly handled natural disasters; etc, basically just a lot of misery - the weave can wear thin, and demons can invade the human world, and have to be beaten back

This is relevant to start with because that's how the dynasty in the country the story is in started - the first ruler was someone who was in some way personally credited with defeating the demons (powerful mage and military commander I think). They got a nifty magic trinket - a crown - that gave them a certain power over the land, both symbolizing and providing protection for it. However, over the centuries the crown got corrupted pretty badly, along with the dynasty itself, that went from genuinely good people who happened to be rulers to... yeah.

Magic in this setting is an ability all people have inherent access to, to a greater or lesser degree. Talented folks can try to figure out magic on their own, but overall self-taught ppl can't compare to mages who actually receive a formal education. The standard system is master+student, but in various cultures different variations have sprung up. The main character comes from an entirely different overseas country where she was a daughter of a wealthy merchant who wanted to study magic, so her parents found her a teacher - a strong and learned mage who didn't mind taking on a student, especially when he was getting paid for it. Eventually he went overseas to join the rebellion, and master/student ties in magic tend to end up being close enough that she just followed him without question.

In this country the system was a 'tower' of mages, where they more or less got forcibly locked up and then pampered. Kids who showed talent for magic were scouted, torn away from their families and put into the tower, where they then got no freedom of movement but a lot of freedom of research and of course had all their needs provided for, as long as they carried out what orders their master (the king) decided to give. "No freedom of movement" of course only applied with the asterisk of "unless ordered by the king", with the asterisk being hella broad and allowing them to take on various official, semi-official and unofficial jobs. The king relied heavily on loyal mages as enforcers, which turned the local populace against them and reinforced their loyalty out of desperation. A bad mix of top-down horrible orders you couldn't refuse to carry out, and no consequences for lashing out at anyone who wasn't a government official, led to a lot of atrocities committed in the name of the king that he even didn't necessarily personally order.

Magic works basically by manipulating the 'weave', and requires energy. Some magic energy is generated by the mage themselves, the more they train this ability the more they get; some magic energy 'floats freely' generated by natural sources like life and emotions, and can be 'drawn in' by mages who know how to do that (all formally trained mages know how to do that, the question is duration and area, as ambient magic DOES become depleted). Some magic energy gathers into material stuff like ore or plants or water, which can then be gathered and used. Magic can be done purely with a thought, but the more complex the action you're trying to do, the harder it is to get it right, and words and gestures help a lot with 'fixing' it, like using a ruler while drawing. Objects can be enchanted, which isn't principally different from just generating a one-time effect, and depending on how they are made and what they are for can be single use, rechargeable, automatically recharge from ambient magic or owner, draw from owner's magic directly (bad design but hey people sometimes suck), or just have a permanent effect that doesn't 'use up' magic energy in any outside-visible way. Rituals, especially those involving pre-made magic objects, allow game-changing complexity and scale of spells. A mage who foresees trouble can, given enough time, fortify their personal laboratory/house/tower/keep absolutely out of proportion with their personal power. It's not impossible to break through / unravel such fortifications, but breaking through would require so ridiculously much force, looking for design flaws, inaccuracies and loopholes is a much more productive way of trying to hack it. That, or just trying to lure the mage outside - human factor is the weak point of any security system.

Whenever a magic action is performed, it 'leaks' some energy 'colored' by the effect it was made to do. The more harmless example would be a library that was daily illuminated by 'candle' spells for centuries eventually having faint ambient light even when no-one's there. The less harmless example can be more or less accurately compared with nuclear fallout. The amount of energy leaked depends on the degree of control an individual mage (or a group of mages; it's entirely possible to collaborate when doing magic, much like it's possible to collaborate on any other activity) has over what they're doing. Maybe comparable with how much paint gets on your hands, face, clothes and everything when you're painting. The bigger the spell, the harder it is to make it airtight; on the other hand, the smaller the spell, the less motivation there is to try hard to make it 'tight'. This can depend on an individual mage's style or skill, or on outside circumstances - an unexpected factor can make the process more messy than intended.

The social system of the land was more or less classic feudalism, eventually transitioning into absolute monarchy, as the mage-rulers took more and more power in their hands. Nobles stopped trying to give their children magic education, as it would just mean them getting whisked away to the tower (unless this was the intended result, which was also a thing that happened) (it was a whole Thing with some people, particularly poorer peasants, trying to develop magic so they can attract attention and get taken to the tower, and others desperately hiding their abilities/pursuits to avoid it) (obviously the mage searchers took bribes, though had to be careful to not get caught). Surrounding lands have some forms of feudalism too for the most part, though there's a lot of diversity there (I haven't worked out a lot of that). Neither native nor foreign nobility was particularly happy with how the king treated them; really, nobody was happy about anything he did, with rare exceptions mostly just confirming the rule.

It's hard to say when rebellion first started mounting; it's fair to say the king produced the rebellion himself by cranking down harder and harder on those who dared oppose him even a little bit. Overreactions and power trips of mages who wanted to feel superior to objectively freer people resulted in villages, towns and whole regions being wiped from the face of the earth, survivors banding together into either various rebellious movements or just bandit gangs. Rise of banditry led to more unrest, unrest led to prosecution, and so the wheel turned. Eventually, the very big majority of rebellious movements managed to unite under a single banner, with a group of charismatic leaders who were more or less agreed upon as the new rulers when the rebellion wins. Nobody really had the concept of democracy, the idea was changing dynasties.

Changing dynasties in this case was actually a more complicated thing than just toppling a government, because of the whole magic thing. As the country was a whole and single concept in the minds of the people, so the magic bent to actually make it so, and tie it to the crown/rulers. It's kind of complicated, because it's not purely 'whatever people think is true goes', but it is influenced heavily by people's 'mindscape' and also a dozen other factors that nobody keeps track of except particularly dedicated mage researchers... who in this country could be find exclusively in the tower. Rebel mages kind of had more immediate&important things to worry about, and even when someone thought about it, the thought was dismissed with 'let's take it one step at a time; it can't possibly get worse than it is right now' (see: nuclear fallout)

In the last phase of the war, the army + guard mostly switched over to the rebels' side, the problem being the king had long stopped relying on them. It was him and his mages vs everyone else, more or less, with civilian population just submitting to whoever was present.

The Big Final Confrontation was a big battle between the rebellion forces and the king. All people who were meant to evenatually rule the country were there, leading the troops, this being the only possible way people would actually follow them into what was very likely to be a suicide charge. On the other hand, a big layer of students / aides / next in commands was left out of the battle entirely as backup. This proved a wise decision as the battle did in fact end with a suicide attack - the king managed to set up a spell that would destroy the entire rebellion army, and the best the rebellion mages could do was disrupt it so it would detonate, destroying the king himself and his not-very-big-in-size army, AND a huge chunk of rebellion forces that were closer to them, including the mages themselves.

This left the victorious army basically without leadership, and the factually-kids left behind had to quickly figure out what to do. The reason the protagonist ended up in charge was just because she was the one to start telling disoriented others what to do now. She was just an apprentice mage, she didn't really expect to be looked to as a ruler, but she took on the responsibility more or less by accident and had to stick with it.

So, she was left with a ravaged country still actively in the process of destroying itself (remember, banditry, and non-aligned rebellion movements)... and the king's treasury, which she took a look at and went 'holy shit what'. And then she took a look at financial books and went 'holy shit what' a second time.

There was enough money to literally rebuild the whole country... the question was how to organize it (popular rebellions: not the most disciplined of forces) and how to not end up being a tyrant herself.

The plan she came up was was to organize a big big harvest festival in all more or less big population centers all over the country and invite a lot of foreign traders with a lot of goods to it - as much as she estimated would be needed to, in fact, rebuild the country. (The calculations on that were not done instantly and not on her own obviously). The festival would start with a census, where each person, including kids, would give their name, have their 'unique magic imprint' taken, and be given a pretty large sum of money. This would double as a pardon for any past banditry, assuming they did not get caught doing the same thing again. There are a lot of logistical difficulties with it, starting with 'what about people who can't come' proceeding to 'how many mages do we need to do this' and so on and so forth. Well, the revolution happened in the beginning of April, and she has until mid-September (the traditional harvest festival time) to coordinate the whole thing. And figure out what to do with cleanup of land and so so so many other problems (I spent many hours figuring out those problems I don't remember all of it now and I wouldn't be able to write all of them out anyway) (the long term plan is to do this same thing, festival, census and all, every year, because the crown's income is ridiculous and the structures ensuring it still more or less work, the king wasn't /that/ stupid)

One thing she decided on from the very beginning was take the tower as her own. She did keep them under a sort of 'house arrest' from the beginning, but they were not persecuted in any way. Obviously the populace would have problems with it and want to bring them to justice for what they did, but also if she let them do what they wanted they'd just burn down the whole tower and there were /kids/ there, not to mention mages are never not a significant asset. Given access to the king's personal stuff she wouldn't have problems controlling them, and she did need them. This was its own Whole Big Storyline about how she handled it, with individual approach and a lot of showmanship and focusing on giving people the impression that they were heard and believed rather than actual justice.

(There was also its own Whole Big Storyline with her burning out from trying to personally do everything just so she'd be legitimized in people's eyes)

Also she didn't want to take the crown from the beginning, despite everyone thinking she should, if only to make the situation clear and stable in the eyes of foreign powers. Then some facts came to light, and the sum of it was: the complete and absolute shit happening in the country for the last several years weakened the weave, and there's an impending demon invasion. Theoretically it's not yet too late, and if she manages to keep the peace and make everyone happy and make a lot of good vibes happen, the weave might yet hold... but she definitely shouldn't even touch the crown, as it has a lot of Bad Vibes in it by now, and as it was originally an artifact of the land's /protection/ from demons, 'activating' it again via a coronation ceremony would only make things that much worse for the country, not to mention it'd be pretty bad for the ruler personally. On the other hand, if she beats back a demonic invasion, either by force or by peace, she'll pretty much earn her own right to rule the land regardless of the old crown. Hell, she's /already/ earning it by doing everything she does.

So as far as specific questions go:

1) how did he rize to power? he inherited the throne, I think there was a bit of infighting over the crown among relatives and that had its own separate plot with a 'legitimate heir' popping up, but in the end he won out in the family intrigues

2) what prevented the revolt of hiz kingdom, thoze opprezzed to the point of zuicidal urgez gathering in one place? nothing. they did it. repeatedly and consistently. eventually it worked

3) what finally brought him down? see above: a big fucking climactic battle with his own spell detonating on him in the end

4) why didnt thiz happen before it happened? because he was a powerful ruler with a powerful base of mages who had to support his rule or greet an angry mob. It was a combination of random luck, slowly developing the organization over the years, and deterioration of the king's own support structure (there were renegade tower mages in the rebellion too, to give one example) that eventually overcame that

5) what waz the extent of hiz magic ability? that's a Really Good Question. He inherited a fuckton of ready-made magical power in magical items, including the palace itself (the defense spell system being one aspect of what it did), but he was also powerful enough personally to exploit it to its fullest potential. In the end it came down less to his personal 'power' (the amount of energy he could put in a single spell cast from his mind with no external aid) and more to his cunning, sheer nerdery (there was... a lot of creative demonology behind the scenes, and a huge part of demonology is just extensive research of every aspect of what you're going to try beforehand) and full grasp of resources he had at his disposal. Whether he would or would not win an all-out no-external-aid magic duel with the protagonist, or any other rebellion mage, is literally irrelevant. Nobody was fighting fair.

6) where did the kingdom get food? this is another Very Good Question. The country was fucking d e s t r o y e d. A lot of kingdom... simply didn't, and this is one of the problems the protagonist has to contend with. It's worth noting: - the strong foreign support the rebellion was getting, including some food supplies. Nobody wanted the fucker in charge of that world's equivalent of majority of oil wells; - the simple hedge magic a lot of villagers could do to augment their farming. This had to be kept secret from the government, but then, those mages wouldn't know what to look for, for the most part, as this kind of magic, cooperating with the land rather than forcing your will on it, was an entirely different branch than what was studied in the tower. Sure, some who came from there themselves would know, but they also knew this would mean going after literally everyone, and that particular kind of magic was no threat to anything, it was literally just particularly potent harmony with nature; - the economy of the crown getting rich on selling off magic items was built on exploiting the big magic sources, but in this country there were also a lot of tiny ones, that - see above - permitted the land to be a lot more productive than it should have been. Before the nuclear fallout shit, there was no such thing as a 'lean year' in this country, and hunger was basically unheard-of. This entire thing was a purely political problem. (so, yes, overall the answer is 'farming in villages')

7) what level of zcarcity and poverty waz there? See above: no want for food at least, until civil war started destroying everything. However, the state basically hogged all the magic resources that weren't small enough to escape their notice, so magic items were only marginally more common than in other countries. This wasn't always this way, the situation developed gradually as this specific dynasty deteriorated over the last several generations;

8) waz it a police ztate? "police" sounds to me like a much more modern concept, idk what 'police state' would mean Way Back When. But mages were being sent all over the country 'inspecting' and harshly punishing anything wrong, more and more so, so sort of?

9) waz there brainwazhing? if zo, what are the repercuzzionz that your protagonizt haz to face? not really, no. The king relied on brute force to get across his point. The closest is the tower, but mages there had an overall pretty good idea of the situation they were in, though their coping methods were often not the best;

10) how doez the kingdom deal with hygine? how doez that differ between economic clazzez? iz magic involved, and if zo, how zo? how doez that change with the protag? I'm personally a bit of a filthy pig so congratulations you hit on a question I have never thought of before. I'd have to say that in other countries, the ones where magic is available to anyone with money to pay for access, yes, magic piping and plumbing and deodorants and everything are definitely a thing for rich people, and the protagonist probably grew up seeing this as the norm. On the other hand, in this country, and others where magic is more restricted, 'magic hygiene' would come in the form of rare curiosity items. That is, among the common folk - mage laboratories, particularly old and well-equipped ones like the tower, have magic everything, including teleportation circles instead of elevators. Otherwise it's usual historical stuff... which I have no idea what it would specifically be for that climate and perios ahaha *hides*

11) do you have a ztory to tell on a zmaller and grander zcale then the ztory of economiez, that which iznt life itzelf but a facsimile carried out by it'z people? I'm not sure how to parse this question but most of the meat of the story is the protag figuring out her personal relationship with powre, so, IDK??? There are also other characters I like, like one of the aforementioned demons and a 'mundane prophet' (its a scientific term in-universe) maid and her tower mage war criminal brother and the young mage kid and the guy with a connection to the goddess of luck who ends up being her mentor though he isn't even that much of a mage and the ex-tower mage who ended up being in charge of the tower now that the rebellion won and I D K if this answers your question at all

12) what'z the landzcapez? THIS IS A VERY GOOD IDEA I NEED TO GIVE MORE THOUGHT TO. "Exactly like Ukraine" is a bad lazy answer, given the land is sort of alive and shaped a lot by its natural magic >_> but climate-wise, yeah, mostly like Ukraine. There are forests and plains and hills, mostly, with the southeastern border being mostly uninhabited mountains. There is a sea to east/northeast, with the mountains cutting off most of the coastline from the rest of the country. The capital is to the south. I don't know I'm getting vertigo trying to translate the vague mental image I have in my head into actual geographical directions )=

13) what kind of dancing are there? feztivalz? immigration? muzic? Another thing I never thought of... I'm sorry I'm so uninterested in the specifics of some of these that I can just answer 'regular folk dancing with regular folk music'. I literally have no idea how to tell folk music of my own country from folk music of any other European country and the only reason I know our folk dancing is because gopak is a meme. You don't want me trying to figure out these things anyway >_< Immigration was a thing back before the Bad Times, the country was fairly ethnically diverse and still is I guess, in bigger cities skin color variations are barely more memorable than hair color, and in the rural areas closer to the borders too. Festivals are A Thing that was part of the plotline I was figuring out, with the whole nature magic thing. Definitely a harvest festival, of course.

14) what waz there before he took over? how did hiz rule effect all of theze? Overall, the biggest effect is that people are poorer, and more focused on immediate survival. Nobody wants to stick out, nobody knows when a mage will decide that a festival is not respectful enough to the king and level a village. The bigger cities and the most backwater nobody-even-knows-they-exist villages are the two opposites that managed to keep more of the culture - cities were more integrated with the mages' 'policing' even before the Bad Times and so had less to adjust, and the most backwater villages avoided the worst of it. Tiny towns and big villages, those of it that survived, basically stopped any kinds of public celebrations at all. The protag organizing a big harvest festival will not interfere with anyone's pre-existing plans, there. (That she's foreign is a non-factor here, it's not like she's going to be personally micromanaging it, there's lots of people to delegate this particular part to)

15) doez magic work through the human body? more like through the human mind, but body is if not -the- source of energy, at leasts a very important one

16) iz it languaged bazed? no, any verbal formulas are purely to help spellcasters focus. Although given the whole 'magic affected by human concepts' thing, certain phrasings that are only ever used in magic (antiquated words, dead languages) might take on some power of their own. Basically the language basis is: if the spellcaster knows what they're saying and what they're intending to do by it, it works. If they are trying to blindly repeat a spell in a language they don't know without any idea how it works... maybe don't?

17) what'z the power zource? It can be basically summed up as Life. Life is not caused by magic, instead magic is caused by life. Dead worlds like our moon have no magic at all, other than the kind tied to what people think of these places

18) iz it through zpiritz? It can be! Many different kinds of entities that can be called 'spirits' exist. However, this is not the kind that is 'mainstream' in the tower, nor the kind the protagonist focused on when learning. They would know a little about it, like the basic fact it exists and the common principles that apply to it as well as to other kinds of magic, but overall are profoundly ignorant on this matter

19) through permiating magical energy? magic both uses up and generates ambient magic energy, yeah

20) iz it through perzonal power of zoulz? among other things, yes. If, say, two mages with vastly different abilities swapped bodies, the resulting magical abilities of both of them would be a weird fusion of what each of them separately was good at

21) iz it through perzonal power of zoulz? gods exist! like, pagan gods. none other than the goddess of luck came up so far though

22) unholy power? demons have magical power of their own, that is distinctly different in quality from that humans use, and does not interact with the weave much. It is both stronger and weaker, depending how you look at it. A demon could not learn human magic, and humans can not access demonic powers either, but various pacts are possible that allow cooperation or even merging of powers. Straight up work for hire is the most common form though

23) can it be obtained by zacrifice? how would you define zacrifice? ability to use magic, in itself, no; magical energy, yes, in many different ways. For example, it can be granted by a divine entity that likes having sacrifices made to it; more direct 'natural' transformations are possible, like draining life from something living (though this is horribly inefficient and can be compared to burning down the house to keep warm in winter); or for example, blood holds power and blood magic is A Thing

24) doez an offering of pain count? in this specific setting, this is counterproductive to human magic but makes one possible currency when dealing with demons (who feed on pain)

25) what kind of recreational drugz are there? this question sounds weirdly specific to me, and yet is wholly legitimate. Alcohol probably exists, though I'm not sure if I'd even referenced it once in the story proper; I could easily cut it out and make the recreatinal drug scene much weirder if I wanted to. Overall, I would say recreational drugs aren't widespread in this particular country (though for wealthy people there are no doubt all kinds of imports)

26) where do they come from? how doez pharmiceauticalz work? how doez magic come into play with all of thiz? I absolutely love that you asked this question, because I had not considered this before and yet it falls Within My Sphere Of Interest. First of all, there's alchemy: mixing ingredients and magic spells, producing a very weird and diverse variety of effects, though usually not very strong compared to what casting a spell on a 'solid' object can do. (An enchanted branch can be a thousand times more powerful than an enchanted potion, but an enchanted potion can have a weirdly precise effect that a branch would need to be worked at by generations of masters to achieve) Second of all, there's magic in nature: some plants can heal just because they have healing magic stored in them, regardless of what kind of plant they are (though watching out for poison shit is still, y'know, prudent). And third, there's regular folk knowledge of plants and what they do, extending into apothecaries in cities and private doctors tending the rich. There was no any kind of religion-based persecution of, say, wise women who know how to heal people with herbs (at least not in this country), so this remains a respected skillset transfered from parent to child. There are people (more often, yes, women) who specialize with it, but most people who grow up in the country would know what to brew against cough, what to put on a wound to prevent infection, and a couple of more complex family recipes.

27) how widezpread iz the availability of magic? See above: varies by country. A lot depends on how much 'natural' magic is in a specific place; rest assured this country is not the only magic-rich one in the world (though the only one with quite as many big concentrated sources). A lot depends on politics and availability of formal learning. There is the top-down direction of magic spreading, with wisened mages teaching their students arcane mysteries, and there's the grassroots direction, that includes anything from charlatans with annoyingly real disappearing coin tricks to thieves who manage to figure out how to blend with shadows to soldiers whose weapons seem to be blessed by gods of war to farmers who know how to get on the good side of the land. 'Mundane prophet' is its own category: people who get visions, prophetic dreams and other kinds of comes-out-of-nowhere knowledge without ever trying or even wanting to have it. They are, however, generally a sign of the weave weakening and the demonic invastion being imminent )=

28) can it be uzed pazzively or accidentally? On one hand, I want to say no, but on the other hand, with this system of magic I don't really feel like saying no to anything. In some magic traditions and in some environmental conditions (A LOT depends on natural and ambient magic), it probably can. Maybe you can define "I don't know anything about magic but I'm trying really hard to achieve this result I want and it weirdly seems to be working" as "accidentally" (OK, now that I'm thinking about ambient magic and particularly ambient lingering side effects: a person can 'activate' them with their thoughts if they are particularly strong/concentrated somewhere. This wouldn't technically be the person doing the magic, but then again, if they did it knowingly on purpose it might as well be)

29) are people born with it? People are born with a degree of affinity for interacting with the weave, but just as much depends on natural+ambient magic where they were growing up. A kid in a mage family, in a house where some magic is always happening, would have a stronger magical affinity than this same kid growing up in different circumstances and never encountering magic at all. What affinity influences is basically how easy it is for a person to use magic; however, there are lots of different ways to use magic (see: spirits, for example), and people's affinities can take on very different shapes. Partly this is actually cultural, influenced by a sort of collective subconscious: mages from different countries might find entirely different things easier or harder, with overlappng variations between individuals

30) do zome people not have accezz to magic, and if zo, how many and why? First of all, there are places with very little to no 'natural' magic. While ambient magic will exist anywhere there's anything living, lack of natural magic means lack of people instinctively interacting with it, doing the grassroots sort of casual magic. For children who grow up in this kind of land in a remote area that doesn't have formally educated mages, it's entirely possible to never encounter any kind of magic at all. Second of all, there are simply people who don't have access to formal education. Interacting with natural magic is very limited in terms of what you can do - mostly just what nature wants you to do - and people who can only do that and don't have the passion to stubbornly hone this ability until they can access their own energy as well might as well be cut off from magic. Most people belong to this category. Third, it's not impossible for a person to be born with zero magical affinity at all. Natural+ambient magic and inborn affinity are multiplied, not added, so someone who's a zero could never learn any magic at all. It's very rare, though, and if born to a family with a magic tradition could be regarded as a sort of disability. This person could still do certain kinds of demonology and interaction with spirits and divine magic though; gods don't care about magic affinity in picking who they interact with and gift with power. Those things are obscure in the country the story is taking place in, but in some cultures, or even specific places, it might well be a default thing for any person to learn when growing up, making their 'zero' affinity even less relevant than it is for people with simply no access to magic learning at all.

31) how doez magic effect the flora and fauna of your zetting?? VARIOUSLY. Normal farming looks mostly the same, but deep forests, mountains and swamps can look veeeery differently than in our world :> (This applies mostly to places with a lot of natural magic, of course; and in an entirely different way, to places with strong ambient effects. You maybe want to stay away from those latter ones)

[an-oger-in-the-wild]

Merfolk Massacre

This week, I’ll be sharing an encounter that can act as a stand-alone side quest or an ongoing mission, depending on how well it is received by your party or how inquisitive they are. The introductory encounter is appropriate for a 5th-level party; however, you can adjust it in either direction to fit your current group’s capabilities.

The initial inspiration for this was brought about by the combination of my campaign’s tempest cleric and pirate warlock, both of whom have close ties to the sea. The quest can be picked up in any point of interest with access to a large waterway; however, if you’re in the process of worldbuilding, feel welcome to use the city from my campaign’s world: the Lake District, a shopping district built on a wide mile-long bridge over top of the region’s largest lake, Loch Blióg, which flows into the Behir River.  (It’s important to note that the river opens into the ocean, but that is for a later point.)

Summary: the bodies of many of the lake’s freshwater merfolk near the Lake District have been found brutally mutilated and murdered by many of the fishermen and barge shipmen who travel the waterways between the Behir River and Loch Blióg. The party will need to do some investigating to discover the source of the massacres - a cloister of merrow. Extended interest in the reason behind these killings will lead into the greater story behind the introductory quest: the merrow are collecting components for their leaders, a coven of powerful and hideous sea hags, who want to transform into beautiful but even deadlier creatures...sirens.

Part I: Rumor Has It

There are a couple of different ways by which you can drop this quest into your party’s laps: if they are the type to immediately enter a town and ask for the hot gossip, that is obviously going to be your easiest and safest bet - allow bartenders, shopkeepers, and guards to be readily able to offer up this information upon request.  If your party isn’t the type to seek out side-quests on their own but perhaps could use a distraction while you scramble to assemble more pieces of your main story’s plot, then you could always leave small nuggets as they enter the POI: little things like:

As you enter [the city on the lake], you see something humanoid being dragged from the lake...squinting to get a closer look, you see that it appears to be of merfolk kind...

Entering the [temple], you hear an acolyte arguing with the high priest over whether or not it is important to provide a proper burial to “our aquatic neighbors.”

[The shady alchemist] looks around, making sure that no one else is watching you two, as they lean in to mention, “I have plenty of potions of Water Breathing downstairs if you’re interested...with all the merfolk turning up dead as of late, I’ve found a way to replicate the philter for a cheaper cost…”

Depending on the party’s ability to get information, any or all of these bits and pieces can be made available to them by way of your NPCs:

While none of the NPCs know WHAT the creatures are, those who do business near the water (fishermen, dockers, sailors) will be able to describe them as “larger, monstrous-looking versions of merfolk” - a decent Intelligence (Nature) check can allow a player to ascertain that the creatures are merrow.

There is a pod of freshwater merfolk who live in a cenote cavern on the far end of the lake; the merfolk are kindly towards land-dwellers and mostly keep to themselves.

Attacks seem to happen in the evening hours, as bodies are always found in the morning hours.

The mysterious creatures have been seen coming in and out of the canal’s lock system to attack their prey, but they always depart back towards the river after making a kill.

Part II: Planning an Attack

(Optional:) I’m a DM who rewards ingenuity, so I like to build in ways for my PCs to get stuff done without simply hacking and slashing their way through an encounter, should they be crafty enough to seek them out. This next bit introduces one of the ways by which they can try to ensnare the monstrosities: may I introduce to you the loch’s LOCK, a method used in canals to keep large water crafts from scraping along the bottom of a waterway by use of gates that empty or fill with water to lower or raise a boat. The basic mechanics of the lock (if you choose to add this as a method of entrapment in your encounter) are displayed visually HERE.

The top of the lock (the bollard) is brick-laid and lined in low decorative shrubs (good for quarter cover).

The lock canal is 50 feet deep and 50 feet wide:

The distance between the two gate locks in the canal is 60 feet.

The locks themselves are about 5 feet thick, 100 feet tall, and 50 feet long.

Running along the top of them would require a Dexterity check (DC 12) to keep from falling into the water.  Trying to stay balanced on them during their rise/fall would require another Dexterity check (DC 18) to keep from falling into the water.

Opening/closing the lock gates requires a Strength check (DC 10). No Strength check is needed to lift the ground (or "sluice") paddle that lets water flood into the space between the two gates.

It takes one person to close the front lock, one to lift the ground paddle to let the water fill up the lock, and two to open the double gate at the back lock.

If the group doesn’t catch onto this as an option for an ambush, don’t push it; but if they do, it should be markedly easier for them to capture and contain the creatures in case they want to question them and may even merit extra XP for creativity.

Part III: Encountering the Merrow

I ran this with a 5th-level party so that my warlock could purchase a spell book with the ritual spell Water Breathing since they opted to launch their attack in the water, but even a 3rd- or 4th-level party could handle a few merrow without risking a TPK. I used six merrow, which is rated a “hard” encounter per Kobold Fight Club.

If your party has put in the effort to utilize the lock, allow them to keep watch for the merrow (PC’s Perception versus the merrow’s Stealth). If your party opts to take the battle underwater like mine did, be prepared to research and run combat underwater (see Chapter 9 of the Player’s Handbook).  The six merrow will swim slowly and silently into the canal (which normally remains open at night) once it’s dark.

For being a Challenge Rating 2 creature, a merrow is a pretty cool monstrosity: it is classified as “large” and gets two attacks per turn (and one of them are ranged). To boot, their ranged attack - the harpoon - is able to pull a creature closer to them if they’re able to (a.) hit them with the attack and (b.) outroll a “huge” or smaller creature in a contested Strength check (a merrow has a whopping +4 Strength modifier...not half bad). Their AC is a mere 13, but they have what 99% of your PCs haven’t got: a swim speed of 40 feet. I’d recommend trying to focus on tethering any PC without a stellar Strength score since this will keep them from being able to escape if they fail their check against the merrow’s harpoon.

Once the encounter ends, the party can either loot the merrow or grill them for intel. It’s important to note that merrow cannot speak common (their canon languages are Aquan and Abyssal), so if your players want to question these creatures, someone is either going to need to know one of these languages or have a spell like Tongues prepared. If they are ready to loot the creatures, they’ll find satchels on each of the merrow containing a combined amount of:

16 freshwater pearls

4 lbs of merfolk scales

3 locks of merfolk hair

Additionally, you can opt to have a merperson act as a liaison for the colony if the party would like to speak with them: should they do so, allow the merfolk to offer a token of their gratitude based on the party’s level:

Candle of the Deep, a common item (levels 1-4)

Helm of Underwater Action, an uncommon item (levels 5-9)

Part IV: More Than Just a Side Quest

If the party chooses to follow this quest to completion, allow them to venture out into the rest of your world along the riverway, picking up various legends and lore from river and coastal dwellers about “a sea hag coven that terrorizes the waters of [one of your world’s oceans].”

Sea hags (CR 2), even in a coven (CR 4), are not all that powerful unless encountered at lower levels or with some additional help such as minions (like merrow, sahuagins, or sharks) or homebrewed lair effects (like undertows, kelp plants that ensnare, or random conjurations of tentacles as indicated in the 4th-level spell Black Tentacles).  Therefore, if you want to beef up this encounter for a higher-leveled party, consider keeping the sea hag’s Horrific Appearance and Death Glare abilities but using the stat block of a bheur hag (CR 7) for its AC, HP, and magic-casting features. Additionally, make time of the essence as the PCs battle the underwater witches and their minions since failure to defeat them swiftly will allow the coven time to complete their transformations into sirens. DnD Beyond’s Homebrew content has some really good ones, but my favorite was the CR 10 Classic Siren created by the user “ProbablyGood,” simply because (a.) they made the creature fey (which works with the sea hag origin in this context) and (b.) they gave the creature lots of appropriate spells for enticing and enchanting.

Depending on the level at which your party completes this quest, consider gifting them a massive treasure stash (perhaps stolen from sea merchants or pirates) as well as one of the following:

Bowl of Commanding Water Elementals, a rare item (levels 10-14)

Conch of Teleportation, a very rare item (levels 15-20, destination is set to a specific destination of your choice)

Hope you’ve enjoyed this read and perhaps find it useful in your own campaign or one-shot setting!  I’m always interested in other people’s homebrewed encounters and willing to help others build encounters if they’re stuck, so feel free to hit me up - you have but to ask.

[worldbuildingworkshop]

Worldbuilding Tutorial #9: Government

Intro There are a couple of ways to go about building a government: the simple way and the complex way. As with all aspects of worldbuilding, if a particular element in the world is largely unimportant to what you’re creating it for, always feel free to take the simpler or easier way and move on to something more worth spending your time on. If detailing out the government is not beneficial to your story or world, then take the simple way and move on with your project. If it’s more important, then it’s worth taking time to put more thought into it.

------------

Government: The Simple Version This version is pretty easy. It mostly involves looking at forms of pre-existing government and picking a type for each governing entity of your world. There is a list here that I like very much that sums up many kinds of governments in a couple sentences. Beware: brevity often comes at the price of accuracy. That list is a useful starting place, but if you aren’t sure or want the government to factor just a little more into your world, then it would be wise to take some time to do just a little bit more research into that government. Only, of course, with the depth that you need - if all you need is a paragraph of expansion, sure; if you need a more in-depth explanation of the cogs and gears of it, that’s fine too. The wikipedia article on Forms of Government is a good way to expand on things to whatever degree you require.

There are a few basic things to think about when choosing a type. One: culturally similar locations are likely to share similar forms of government. Not every government in your world has to be its own unique type; you are allowed to have regions that have roughly the same governmental structure. Two: consider any cultural norms or history you may have already fleshed out or have some sense of for your region. Cultures with a high emphasis on individuality or collectivism, or on authority or egalitarianism, are likely to adopt governmental structures that reflect this. Three: cultures with very different governing styles are likely to have a certain amount of clashing or tension between them, and that can influence the geopolitics of your regions.

Government: The Complex Version This version of government-building involves designing a form of government from scratch. There’s a good chance that whatever type you end up designing will to some degree resemble a form of government in the real world; that’s fine and to be expected. We in the real world have had thousands of years and countless civilizations to experiment with how we organize and govern ourselves. The benefit to doing this anyway is that you have a better understanding of the more intricate workings of your government - which, for any setting that includes a certain amount of political intrigue, is important. It also allows for adding features not traditionally part of real-world governmental forms as needed or desired.

Below are a number of things to consider when designing a government, and aspects of a culture that tend to factor in.

-Size: The bigger a population a government is governing, the more complex that government needs to be. Conversely, the smaller a governed population is, the simpler its government can be. Part of this has to do with how face-to-face a government can be conducted; if your government is on the scale of a village, then everyone can meet and discuss issues fairly easily. If your government is on the scale of several cities then you are going to need layers of representatives to communicate changes and requests and carry out orders. Physical space matters too; a very small population scattered over a very large area still limits access and often requires representative to act on behalf of everyone who can’t travel. A large population in a very tight area can still interact with one another much more easily.

-Access: Who has what kind of access to decision-making can vastly influence the operation of a government. This element considers not just physical access but also elements of social status, gender, age, profession, family ties, and other aspects of identity. Many cultures in our history have limited governing access only to the men, or only to the elders, or only to those  who are children of the previous ruler. The perspectives that those cross-sections of your population bring to rulership will affect not only what kind of government you end up with but what kind of governing that government does.  Who is allowed to help make decisions? How many of them? Who isn’t, and why?

-Cultural Values/Norms: The values and norms of a culture greatly impact that culture’s perspective on governance. In the real world, people who believe that children’s job is to obey their parents without question often also believe in more authoritarian types of government, because they have a value basic to both of those that involves obeying authority. Cultures that place more emphasis on community are likely to favor governments that reflect that; cultures that place more emphasis on the individual are in turn more likely to reflect that. Cultures that believe in honesty are more likely to have transparent kinds of government; cultures that believe in privacy are more likely to tend towards government conducted with more secrecy. Consider how your society works on a daily level and what it prioritizes, and how that will factor in to its government.

-Transitions of Power: This is a bigger one to consider than one might expect at first. The difference in structure between a government in which the current ruler determines an inheriter from their children, versus one in which any common person can run to be elected, versus the next ruler is chosen by a council of the entire region’s priests is very significant. It also asks the question of how often transitions of power happen, how long they take, and what is involved in doing so (a large coronation celebration vs. an election season vs. praying to the gods for guidance). This is also affected by whether the ruler is an individual or a council or group - and in that case, whether a government changes all its rulers at once or if it happens in a more steady fashion.

-Resources: There are ways in which resources and what kinds of resources a region has access to can affect government. Sheer quantity is an obvious one: a larger government is going to require a larger amount of resources in order to stay running, so a country with very few resources is likely to have a simpler government. This also includes how a government accesses those resources - be it taxation, tribute, mandatory service, or the like (and how they are obtained and enforced). It is also often true that in situations in which access to a resource means access to power, that those who are involved in obtaining that resource are also able to influence the way the government works. These can be both physical resources (such as the EIC setting up an offshoot government in India to collect spices) and people resources (such as Venice and the power that traders wielded because of its importance in the economy). There are undoubtedly other ways that resources impact governance; hopefully, you will find the ones relevant for you as you design. 

-Divisions of Power: There are many aspects to a society, and even in cases where there is a single ruler that doesn’t always mean that said ruler is in charge of all things. Historically, religion is an excellent example of this - there is often some kind of high religious figure who decides what happens in that venue. In the current day, this can also be seen in the way that there is both a PM and a parliament in some countries, or how in the USA the executive/legislative/judicial branches are separated. There are plenty of other aspects in which government may be involved - magic, trade, warfare, espionage, diplomacy, etc - that may not always be in the purview of a single person. Figuring out what the important organization parts of your society are and who is in charge of that thing, and how that person or people relates to people in charge of other things, can add another layer of depth to your country.

Some final notes. One of the things you will find about governments throughout the history of the real world is that they have a habit of changing over time - be that in sudden, violent upheavals or gradual change that response to the growth of a population or the discovery of a new resource or other region. Oftentimes there are holdovers from previous forms of government, and adding those in as flavor can be interesting and add more depth to your society. It also means that if something in your world has influenced a government in your world to the point of necessitating change, it can change. 

------------

In terms of the order of the next few tutorials, I think I’m going to focus on the kinds of things that novice or casual world builders tend to consider first, because they’re some of the easiest, simplest, and most-relevant-to-most-projects aspects of worldbuilding. This one was on government; the next few should be some order of religion, trade/industry, demographics, and so on. The kinds of things that can ultimately be described with a few quick labels once you know what you’re going for. After those are established I’ll move into subjects that are less universally pertinent - things like cuisine, holidays, architecture, etc. As always however, if you are more interested in a particular tutorial sooner rather than later, use the ask box to request that topic and I’ll bump it up in my writing queue.