#worldbuilding research

[inky-duchess]

WorldBuilding Ask Game

Here is a little ask game for WorldBuilding in your WIP to pad out one country or all of them! Use it for yourself or ask a friend and spread some love. Focus on a particular section and have fun!

Geography

What does your world look like? What's the biome? Are there different ones?

Are there any oceans? If so, are they accessible? Are they a reliable source of travel and food?

Are there any rivers in your world? Any lakes? What's the longest river? Deepest lake?

Is there a safe supply of drinking water? If not, why not?

Are there mountains in your world? What's the highest one?

What is the weather like? How does this effect life?

What animals inhabit the world? What animals are indigenous or considered exotic?

What are some natural features your world is famous for? Is your world considered beautiful?

How many countries in your world?

How are countries divided? By natural lines or by agreements?

Population

What's the population like? Is it large or sparse?

Is there any factors in population density? Do more people live in a certain area more than elsewhere? Why is that?

Are there different peoples living in your world? If so, how do they get on?

How important is nationality? Are foreigners tolerated? Or are they unwelcome?

What countries get on? What countries hate one another?

Are there any important cities? Why are they important?

What's the architecture like? Are there any outside influences?

What's a typical building material? What's considered an expensive feature to include?

What is infrastructure like? Are roads and railways in good condition?

Is there public transport? Is it reliable?

Government

What system of government does your world adhere to? Is it popular?

Where is the seat of government?

Are there different governmental agencies?

Are there political parties? If so, what are their goals?

How much control does the government have over the average person?

Can your people vote? If not, why not? If so, who has/hasn't the right to?

Are there any parties or organisations that oppose the government?

How does the government crack down on sedition?

Are people allowed to criticise the government? If so, how? If not, how do they get around it?

How are laws made? Who makes them?

Is there any odd laws in your world?

What are some punishments to crime? Are they considered fair?

What crimes are unfathomable for the people?

Who handles justice? Is justice obtainable for all?

Are there any police? What's their reputation?

What role does the military play in your world?

Who controls the army? Head of state or government as a whole?

Is it considered a good career path?

Who can join the army? Are there any restrictions?

What is your world's stance on war? Are there any neutral parties? Or particularly warlike ones?

Commerce and Trade

How is trade done?

Is currency universal or dictated by region?

How is your economy going? What effects it?

What trade is your world known for?

What are some exports? What must your world import?

Are any goods considered luxurious?

What services are available in your world? What services are niche?

What sort of work is common? Is work readily available?

Who is expected to work?

Are workers treated fairly or unfairly?

Are there any ways workers are protected? If not, what are some consequences?

Is your world more reliant on technology or on labour?

Is agriculture possible in your world? If so what can your people grow?

How big is industry? What goods can your people make?

What resources can your country exploit?

What are some barriers to trade and commerce?

Is your nation known for quality? Or Quantity?

Who does your country trade with most often? Who do they boycott?

Are there any major ports in your country?

Are there any banned goods? If so, is there a black market for their purchase?

Society

How society expect one to behave in public? Are there different expectations for different people/genders/ranks?

Is there a social order? Can one move up the ranks?

Is there any considerations made on account of rank, gender, age or position?

What is considered a social faux pas?

Are there any gestures or actions that are considered rude or socially unforgivable?

What would utterly shock somebody to see somebody do?

What are some opinions that are normal for your world but can be considered subversive in real life?

How can one rise up the status ladder? Is there much trouble to do so?

What denotes a person's place in society?

How is life different in cities compared to life in the countryside?

Daily life

Where would someone go to buy their weekly shop? Is food easy to come by?

What would be the daily routine of the wealthy? The common man?

How is hygiene handled in your world? Where does one go to spruce up?

What would be some day to day tasks one might face?

What is the favoured means of travel?

Are there any problems in your world that could effect a daily routine? Potholes? Gigantic spiders? Acid rain?

What ammenties would an average person expect to have access to?

Where would one go if they are injured or ill? What's healthcare like?

Do people feel safe where they live? Are there any places somebody might face danger?

How do people communicate? Is it difficult? Why?

What do people do for fun? What's considered normal fun versus hedonistic?

What pastimes are common? What kind aren't?

Is education valued?

Is there access to education? If so, for who?

Are the population educated? If so to what extent?

Family Life

What is the typical family set up?

Is extended family important?

Who can be considered family? Who can't be?

Is marriage considered a duty? Or is it more of a personal choice?

Is divorce possible?

Can people adopt children?

What happens to orphaned children?

Are children important? If not, why not? If so, why?

What are some typical toys children play with?

What are some games children play with one another?

How is in charge of household chores?

Is there a hierarchy in families?

Are children expected to take on certain roles?

What is the living situation like between the different ranks? Are the roles different?

What's considered the proper way to raise a child?

Culture and Languages

Are there multiple cultures in your world? How do they differ? Do they mesh well together?

How are cultures similar? How are they different?

Are there any traditions in your world? How important is tradition?

What are some rituals your culture undertakes?

Are there any special days? Events?

What are some traditional values in your world? Does it effect daily life?

Are there traditional clothes for your world? Are they something somebody wears on a daily basis or just on occasion?

Are there any rules around what people can wear?

What would be considered formal dress? Casual dress?

What would happen if somebody wore the wrong clothes to an event?

What languages are spoken in your world? If so, how do they sound?

Are there any dialects? If so, how do they sound?

Are most people monolingual? Or bilingual? Or multilingual?

Are there any languages that are closely related?

What is considered a universal language?

Religion

Is religion a thing in your world?

Is religion a staple of life or just a small part?

Does religion affect politics, personal lives and affiliations?

Is your world sectarian? Or ruled by religion?

What are some influences religion has on daily life?

What sort of religion is it? Monotheistic? Polytheistic?

What are some myths your people believe in?

What common rituals does one undertake on a day to day basis?

How does one please a deity?

Where do your people pray? How do they?

What symbols would denote a follower of a certain belief system to a stranger?

What places or objects are considered sacred?

Are there religious orders? If so, who can join?

Is there tolerance or violence over religion? If so, between which faiths?

Food and Drink

What are some traditional dishes in your world?

What would be a basic diet for the common man?

What's considered a delicacy?

Is there a societal difference in diet? What are the factors that effect diet between classes?

Is there any influence from other cuisines? If not, why not? If so, to what extent?

What would a typical breakfast contain?

What would lunch be?

What would be a typical dinner?

What meals are served during the day?

What's considered a comfort food or drink?

Are there any restrictions on who can eat what or when?

Are there any banned foods?

What stance does your world take on alcohol? Is it legal? Can anybody consume it?

Are there any dining customs? Are traditions?

Is there a difference in formal meals or casual meals? If so, what's involved?

Are there any gestures or actions unacceptable at the dinner table?

How are guests treated at meals? If they are given deference, how so?

Are there certain rules about how one can prepare food?

Are there any restrictions on eating with certain people?

How is food generally prepared by?

History

Who are some notable figures from history?

Who founded the country?

Is history looked back on with fondness? Or do your people rather forget?

Are there any heroes in history? Any villains?

What are some highpoints in the history of your land?

What are some points of history nobody likes to speak about?

Does history effect your land, people, culture, language in the present? If so in what ways?

What historic monuments are still around in the present day? What has been lost?

How do people learn about history? Do they learn the truth? Or just an abridged version?

What's a historical event that is important to the story?

[halfbakedspuds]

Okay here's a question for any of ya'll who know biology: would growing up in a low gravity environment (like a fifth of Earth's gravity) affect someone's height, and if so, would that extra length be permanent or something that gradually falls away if they are eventually acclimatized to living in Earth gravity?

This is a research question for my book because I'm too uneducated about human biology to even try taking a guess at this.

[worldofdrakarna]

Worldbuilding Research: The Theory of Classical Elements

One of the core design questions to Drak'Arna's world is 'What if the theory of classical elements were true?' that the elements of Air, Earth, Fire, and Water were the foundational building blocks of well, everything. Below is a summary of what will be a research article found on the Campfire wiki for this world.

The Theory of Classical Elements was formed from a few sources across numerous cultures and was discredited by Ja'far al-Sadiq and Rhazes in during the Scientific Revolution in the 1600s. Atomic Theory is what explains the material basis of our physical world.

The theory while under what we understand to be Chemistry today, was used amongst many ancient philosophies to explain patterns in nature. The term 'element' in this context is to refer to a state of matter or a type of energy or force rather than what we know as the Chemical elements today.

The number and quality of these classical elements vary depending on the culture the philosophy originates from. Certain philosophies around the elements also impacted culture and the arts which is still seen today with the correspondence of these classical elements in various works of pop culture like Journey to the West and Avatar the Last Airbender.

While I haven't taken on every aspect and quality from these various philosophies, some have been an inspiration to my worldbuilding for Drak'Arna. Notably the States of Matter, Aristotle Qualities, Greek, and Chinese Generating & Overcoming interactions.

To read more on this, I recommend these articles on related discredited theories:

https://www.chemeurope.com/en/encyclopedia/Classical_element.html

https://www.chemeurope.com/en/encyclopedia/Elemental.html

https://www.chemeurope.com/en/encyclopedia/Luminiferous_aether.html

https://www.chemeurope.com/en/encyclopedia/List_of_discredited_substances.html

The purpose of this table is also to highlight some of the elemental philosophies from across our world.

The table pictured above is what I compiled from the above links as well as Wikipedia deep-diving. Note that I haven't dove into the esoteric layers there are many schools of thought, belief, and practice across occult and pagan traditions. When looking through these I tend to recommend exploring the history for understanding where some people of the past may have taken elements (heh) from other cultures - it's good to be aware of that, but also when exploring reconstructed traditions hearing lived experiences and academics explaining their history adds a better depth to understanding than just a wiki-dive.

I'd like to emphasize that I do not use every correspondence in my world-building. I think it's incredibly important to treat traditions, living or ancient, with respect. For example, I do not feel it's appropriate for me to use the Native American Tradition with medicine as I do not share heritage with them. However, if I felt that the aspect of medicine associated with seasons would be fascinating to explore further, I would talk to people to understand how to do so respectfully. I admit using this as an example has piqued my curiosity. Such is the way of learning! 

~ ~ ~

What kind of correspondence have I used?

I mentioned above that the notable examples are the States of Matter, Aristotle's Qualities, the Greek Elements, and Chinese Generating & Overcoming Interactions. So I'll elaborate on them here:

States of Matter - this is something that is still referred to today and usually highlights the various 'states' an element can be in. For example, Water's states are:

Gas: Vapor.

Liquid: Water.

Solid: Ice.

Plasma: Uh... There isn't one. (Well in our world ;) )

An example of what this inspired is when looking at what mixtures of elements are for magical purposes, Mostly Water + Lil bit o' Earth = Ice. 

Greek Classical Elements - which is to say are very 'classic' in pop culture too. But this is your usual Air, Earth, Fire, and Water. 

Aristotle's Qualities - this was a further elaboration on the Greek elements which I particularly liked as it showed the connections between them. 

Air: Hot and Wet. 

Earth: Cold and Dry.

Fire: Hot and Dry.

Water: Cold and Wet.

I used these particularly when working on the biomes and climates of my world when figuring out how certain areas were elements mixed - what would they include or lack?

Using Earth-like qualities. The equator is Hot and the Poles are Cold. However, my hemispheres are split based on which is the 'dominant' element. So the North Pole is Cold + Wet, predominantly water with an ice cap. While the South Pole is Cold + Dry because it's in the Fire hemisphere but because I have the Poles as 'Cold' the other quality of Fire is 'Dry' so this has meant that the South Pole is more of a cold-dry badlands desert. 

Chinese Elements - I've always liked the Generating and Overcoming interactions of these five elements. They've played a particular part in both the climates and biomes of Drak'Arna but I've varied it by which element is 'dominant' in the area such as the aforementioned Poles and Hemispheres example. 

~ ~ ~

That's all for this article, I imagine I'll add more to it as I go but this is a look into how I've used the Elements in my worldbuilding. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments below or my ask box but I'd love to know if there's a show or book you love where they use the elements as a form of magic! I know I've harked on about AtLA but there are so many good shows out there.

[faytelumos]

I was writing, but then I came upon the fact that I don’t actually know what a healthy diet for my 300-600 pound reptiles would look like.

If you plan to keep reading, please tighten your seatbelts, not because this is exciting, but because we’ll be taking 90 degree turns at 45mph.  This is basically just me researching out loud so people can see my process.  Also, I will be mentioning various parts of animals that may make some people queasy.

Useveu are a species of intelligent, flight-capable reptiles that, in adulthood, stand between 6 to 9 feet high on average and weight roughly (so roughly) 300 to 600 pounds on average.  They are carnivores, but they live closely to humans, and would therefore eventually incorporate other types of foods into their diets.

(I think it’s worth it to note that the humans who live in countries where Useveu are common almost always have a vegetarian diet.  There are logistical and social reasons for this.)

Reptiles like komodo dragons and snakes can eat pretty much every kind of meat.  Bones and organs are definitely going to be in an Usevuth’s diet, as well.  Reptiles like geckos, however, seem to need veggies, and one thing I read specifically said to make sure geckos are getting enough calcium.

Komodo dragons and snakes eat their prey’s bones, but a gecko isn’t big enough to eat vertebrates.  Pet birds, also, are said to need calcium-rich diets, and we humans go crazy for calcium supplements, but again, pet birds and song birds don’t get opportunities to eat bones, and humans don’t exactly make an effort to eat them.

So maybe Useveu won’t naturally need calcium-rich vegetables.  And maybe they don’t need to avoid phosphorous if their intake of bone is high enough.  But they are a social species living with another social species, and both have relatively high populations, and they have to pay for their food.

Poor Useveu will largely exist off of chicken, eggs, and probably fish for their meats.  These are all high in calcium when consumed whole.  But there are more dietary needs than that.  Useveu are huge animals, and in whatever wild conditions their bodies evolved to cope with, they definitely eat red meat.  If their body relies on red meat in their diet but they’re too poor to afford meat from larger animals, this could lead to iron and vitamin B deficiencies.

I think the bottom line for the fact of whether these guys are getting everything they need from a diet of animals is pretty straightforward.  If they are consuming healthy animals whole, they themselves will be healthy.  This is with the sole exception of deficiencies from being unable to afford red meats.  These can probably be compensated for with the purchase of blood (iron, affordable) and whatever amounts of liver (B vitamins, expensive) can be managed.

My questions becomes what non-animal items an Usevuth can eat off of a human’s plate.

I know for a fact that Usevase (males) will have citrus in their diets.  But citrus fruits require a substantial amount of water to grow, and in a pre industrial revolution world where there are no freshwater rivers or lakes particularly nearby, these foods become expensive.  However, there are trains, which can extend the reach of an affordable citrus belt.  Flying to buy or deliver groceries like this would be impractical and expensive, since the quantity of products would be small for such a long distance.

Citrus fruits contain a lot of oils, acids, and vitamin C.  Usevase have a bodily use for the oils (which can be harmful to digestion in other animals), and will build a tolerance to the acids.  Psoralen, which is a substance that can cause cell damage when combined with sunlight in the skin, would be mostly harmless to Useveu thanks to their scales.

So citrus doesn’t pose a threat to my reptiles that I have to worldbuild around.  Then I look to staples of human vegetarian diets that will grow in the climate I’m looking at, as these will be foods Useveu are most likely to ingest.

Vegetarian staples are largely going to be protein-rich foods, like lentils, beans, quinoa, and eggs.  My climate can’t grow quinoa, but soy and lentil are fine.  Another good food would probably be brown rice, which can grow in this climate, as well.  Looking at its contents for things that could hurt a reptile, I see unfamiliar things like selenium and manganese, but both are water soluble and will be passed by the body once it has the amount it needs.  Bread is another thing that will likely find its way into an Usevuth’s diet, and wheat is both accessible and appears to be non-toxic.

Last on the list of human foods I’m going to bother worrying about is cabbage, which appears to be completely fine for reptiles.  Some species have trouble due to acidity or phosphorous levels in various breeds of cabbage, but this shouldn’t be a problem for Useveu.

So there I have it.  I wasted what must have been almost an hour and a half finding out that nothing I was trying to feed my reptiles was actually going to hurt them.  But at least now I know!

눈_눈

Writing is great.  Always do your research.

---

Yes, I have sources.  No, I will not format or further fact-check them.

https://ielc.libguides.com/sdzg/factsheets/komododragon/diet

https://www.completecritter.com/leopard-gecko.html

https://birdsupplies.com/blogs/news/144550983-calcium-deficiency-in-parrots-and-what-to-do-about-it

https://reptilecraze.com/what-human-foods-can-snakes-eat/

https://www.fitday.com/fitness-articles/nutrition/healthy-eating/white-meat-vs-red-meat.html

https://www.historyrundown.com/can-cats-and-dogs-eat-citrus-fruits/

https://www.thekitchn.com/10-vegetarian-staples-that-are-always-on-my-shopping-list-252972

https://morningchores.com/growing-quinoa/

https://www.homedepot.com/c/ai/find-your-usda-plant-hardiness-zone/9ba683603be9fa5395fab90108cf77fc

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/is-brown-rice-good-for-you#nutrition

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/selenium/

https://www.mountsinai.org/health-library/supplement/manganese

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods/wheat#vitamins-and-minerals

https://homeguides.sfgate.com/conditions-need-grow-rice-wheat-corn-soybeans-80104.html

https://dragonsdiet.com/blogs/dragon-care/can-bearded-dragons-eat-cabbage

https://www.animalhouseofchicago.com/news/reptile-amphibian-herbivore-nutrition

[prokopetz]

I enjoy a good "the Adeptus Mechanicus would be indifferent to gender because they're all about transcending the flesh" headcanon as much as the next nerd, but at times I think it would be more interesting – and also much funnier – if their whole Thou Shalt Not Fuck With The Standard Templates (Unless You're Part of the Secret Cool Kids Club) attitude extended to gender as well. Any novice can be a he/him or a she/her, but you need to reach a certain rank before it's considered appropriate to go by it/its. The existence of neopronouns as occult knowledge permitted only to the worthy.

[petermorwood]

Recent article on NPR about the history of artificial light somewhat frustrated me -- they portrayed all of pre-kerosene history as dark and heinously expensive at all times. Thing is, the writers based their findings solely on tallow candles, & ignored oil lamps, beeswax candles, clever use of refraction & outdoor light including moon/starlight... Also seemed to ignore the ubiquity of hearths / cook fires. Was wondering if you'd be willing to talk about non-tallow light? This isn't to ignore that truly, artificial lighting WAS much more difficult & expensive for much of human history, but acting like tallow candles were the ONLY light source seems very silly! (Plus your other lovely post about bottles of water used to make those candles more efficient via refraction & focus)

I'm betting the article you mean is this one - which refers back to this one.

For matching reference, my own posts about period lighting are here, One and Two, including observations about painting walls white, how to light candles and lamps without matches, and several other matters.

*****

It didn't take too much listening before I got tetchy, because the first half of this podcast seems more about mocking how WEIRD and PRIMITIVE old-time people were, than passing on any useful information.

Despite the presence of Jane Brox (author of "Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light") whale oil only gets touched on in passing, and olive oil isn't mentioned at all.

Instead she starts talking about using oily seabirds (stormy petrels) as "candles", despite this scholarly study concluding that it was something talked about far more than done, besides being so very, very localised that its relevance to the history of lighting is very, very small.

But hey, WEIRD and PRIMITIVE, right?

*****

By contrast, making candles was so commonplace that it was another of those jobs which created surnames. Fletcher once put feathers on arrows, Cooper made barrels, Fisher, Miller, Baker and Farmer are obvious, and Chandler used to make candles.

Lampier, of course, made lamps, which helped keep those naked candle-flames away from anywhere they shouldn't touch. The man on the left is making the lantern bodies, the one on the right is shaving sheets of horn as windows.

It's cheaper than glass, less easily broken yet is translucent enough, when shaved properly thin, to give quite adequate light.

*****

The podcast has a digression about measuring the light output of a reproduction Ancient Babylonian lamp. Here's an original and a repro.

Yet that too says nothing about what fuel the lamp is or should be burning - olive oil, traded all over the Mediterranean by ancient olive-growing cultures.

These are Roman oil-lamps, from simple and cheap to elaborate and costly.

As for beeswax, so far as the podcast is concerned might as well not exist, despite being a by-product of honey, which was THE principal pre-sugar sweetener for centuries when not being made into all that mead whose existence, production and quaffing nobody questions.

Oh yeah, and then there was the amazed discovery (2:40 / 1:25, depending on which you're listening to) that melted beef fat "...smells really nasty, like, ANIMAL nasty,"

Why is this guy surprised? It's part of an animal!

*****

It's the same sort of infotainment ignorance as displayed by this TikTok twit, right up to complaining about the effort involved in preparation of anything because not having powered appliances was so labour-intensive, oh woe. Yes, it was, welcome to any historical period before about 1920. That's where "the daily grind" originates.

However the implication (listen, it's there) that cattle were raised just to provide fat for candles is ludicrous. The fat was a by-product, not a main one, and was often a butcher's side-line, while members of the Chandlers' Guild only worked with superior beeswax.

I don't think you could make candles like these with tallow:

...and you definitely couldn't make one meant to be hand-held.

Picture evidence shows, by their clothing, the class of society who bought these, and tallow-greasy fingers would have been a no-no.

A Chandler didn't make individual candles. By the time that fresh batch is hung up, the first batch away down at the end is cool enough to be dipped again.

A chandler's shop in a medieval city would look very similar, and often had a horizontal wheel on which to hang each batch of candles, rotating them up and around to cool, then back to the dipping pot. Non-modern people may not have had modern tech or time-and-motion studies, but they weren't stupid.

*****

By contrast, the podcast's disparaging attitude of WEIRD and PRIMITIVE is emphasised by what seems a deliberate avoidance of anything which counters it (examples of that in my own posts) and finally at 11.24 / 9:50 came this:

"Even when you get all the way to the 1700s (...) most people are still subsistence farmers, living in some kind of hut, trying to grow enough food not to starve to death (...) and light? Light still comes from finding stuff that's lying around and just lighting it on fire."

Some kind of hut...

Stuff that's lying around...

After making such a declaration, I'm surprised - since they'd been implying it for half the podcast - someone didn't just go ahead and announce that "there's some lovely filth down here..."

That's when I stopped listening.

Enough is enough, and I'd had it.

*****

ETA:

cc: @asmuchasidliketo :->

Here's a photo of what purports to be a Petrel (not petrol, that's something else) Candle, held in the Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford. It's mentioned in that scholarly article I linked above.

Just as "one swallow doesn't make a summer", so one - and only one - known example of this, which may have been a fake-up to spoof the Southerners, doesn't prove it was a common or even rare practice.

There's another reason to take this with a big pinch of salt, so maybe Jane Brox was on a low-sodium diet when she wrote her book.

Creatures with a layer of fat or blubber for insulation all have it like any other form of insulation, on the outside, where it does some good. A wick passed through the inside couldn't draw on it for fuel since there's a layer of muscle and another of internal organs for the oil to get through first.

The cropped-off bottle just visible to the left is a far more likely way seabirds became lamp fuel: by rendering out their oil. This oil is from the Northern Fulmar, Fulmaris glaciaris (or glacialis, I've seen both. Same bird regardless).

Incidentally, the Wikipedia article on European Storm Petrel mentions a supernatural connection, that the petrels were the souls of drowned sailors, and killing them is unlucky.

Not just killing them but making them into candles sounds like A Bad Idea, and is yet another reason why, IMO, the candle thing may be a folktale, or a deliberate leg-pull, or...

Let's just say "improbable" and leave it there. :-P

[serpentface]

how do you come up with the ways cultures in your setting stylize people/animals/the world in general in their artwork, i.e. jewlery, rock carvings, statues, etc? Each culture in your world seems to have a very unique "art style" and I love it a lot - makes them seem that much more 'real'. This is something I struggle with a lot in my own worldbuilding and I'd love to pick your brain if possible 😁

I think a starting point is to have a research process based in the material realities of the culture you're designing for. Ask yourself questions like:

Where do they live? What's the climate/ecosystem(s) they are based in? What geographic features are present/absent?

What is their main subsistence method? (hunter gatherer, seasonal pastoralist, nomadic pastoralist, settled agriculturalist, a mix, etc)

What access to broader trade networks do they have and to whom? Are there foreign materials that will be easily accessible in trade and common in use, or valuable trade materials used sparingly in limited capacities?

Etc

And then do some research based on the answers, in order to get a sense of what materials they would have routine access to (ie dyes, metal, textiles, etc) and other possible variables that would shape how the art is made and what it's used for. This is just a foundational step and won't likely play much into designing a Style.

If you narrow these questions down very specifically, (ie in the context of the Korya post- grassland based mounted nomads, pastoralist and hunter-gatherer subsistence, access to wider trade networks and metals), you can direct your research to specific real world instances that fit this general idea. This is not to lift culturally specific concepts from the real world and slap them into your own setting, but to notice commonalities this lifestyle enforces - (ie in the previous example- mounted nomadic peoples are highly mobile and need to easily carry their wealth (often on clothing and tack) therefore small, elaborate decorative artwork that can easily be carried from place to place is a very likely feature)

For the details of the art itself, I come up with loose 'style guides' (usually just in my head) and go from there.

Here's some example questions for forming a style (some are more baseline than others)

Are geometric patterns favored? Organic patterns? Representative patterns (flowers, animals, stars, etc)? Abstract patterns?

Is there favored material(s)? Beads, bone, clay, metals, stones, etc.

When depicting people/animals, is realism favored? Heavy stylization? The emotional impression of an animal? Are key features accentuated?

How perspective typically executed? Does art attempt to capture 3d depth? Does it favor showing the whole body in 2 dimensions (ie much of Ancient Egyptian art, with the body shown in a mix of profile and forward facing perspective so all key attributes are shown)? Will limbs overlap? Are bodies shown static? In motion?

Does artwork of people attempt to beautify them? Does it favor the culture's conception of the ideal body?

Are there common visual motifs? Important symbols? Key subject matters?

What is the art used for? Are its functions aesthetic, tutelary, spiritual, magical? (Will often exist in combination, or have different examples for each purpose)

Who is represented? Is there interest in everyday people? Does art focus on glorifying warriors, heroes, kings?

Are there conventions for representing important figures? (IE gods/kings/etc being depicted larger than culturally lesser subjects)

Is there visual shorthand to depict objects/concepts that are difficult to execute with clarity (the sun, moon, water), or are invisible (wind, the soul), or have no physical component (speech)?

Etc

Deciding on answers to any of these questions will at least give you a unique baseline, and you can fill in the rest of the gaps and specify a style further until it is distinct. Many of these questions are not mutually exclusive, both in the sense of elements being combined (patterns with both geometric and organic elements) or a culture having multiple visual styles (3d art objects having unique features, religious artwork having its own conventions, etc).

Also when you're getting in depth, you should have cultural syncretism in mind. Cultures that routinely interact (whether this interaction is exchange or exploitation) inevitably exchange ideas, which can be especially visible in art. Doing research on how this synthesizing of ideas works in practice is very helpful- what is adopted or left out from an external influence, what is retained from an internal influence, what is unique to this synthesis, AND WHY. (I find Greco-Buddhist art really interesting, that's one of many such examples)

Looking at real world examples that fit your parameters can be helpful (ie if I've decided on geometric patterns in my 'style guide', I'll look at actual geometric patterns). And I strongly encourage trying to actually LEARN about what you're seeing. All art exists in a context, and having an understanding of how the context shapes art, how art does and doesn't relate to broader aspects of a society, etc, can help you when synthesizing your own.

[icewindandboringhorror]

I made a few new wax seal stamps out of clay (like the ones I did for my worldbuilding stuff forever ago), this time just of random symbols that I thought might look good done in the style of painting over the raised part of the wax or etc. :0c Some of them aren't carved deep enough to really show up that well, but overall they worked okay for being clay lol

[ahb-writes]

Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions (Society)

Society Worldbuilding Questions:

What is each society’s crowning achievement or proudest "claim to fame"?

What are each society’s greatest ills or challenges? (Do these differ depending on who you ask?)

Who garners the most respect in this society, and why?

Who is shown the least respect in this society, and why (what does it value)?

Where are hierarchies and power differences starkest between people in this world, and why?

Where are social norms and influences (such as laws) most stringently upheld in this world, and why (e.g., what roles do politics, ideology, religion, or competition for resources play)?

When did this society’s power structures emerge or change significantly, and why?

When did major societal beliefs or practices become entrenched? Are there any that have recently fallen away or started to disappear?

Why is living within this society challenging for your main characters?

Why does each character enjoy or appreciate this society, if anything?

❯ ❯ ❯ Read other writing masterposts in this series: Worldbuilding Questions for Deeper Settings

[samwisethewitch]

We're doing a Lord of the Rings movie marathon tomorrow, which will be the first time I've watched the whole trilogy in one sitting. To celebrate, I decided to make a full day of hobbit meals to eat as we watch.

I apologize in advance, but I need a place to geek out about my Book Accurate Shire Cuisine, so this is going to temporarily become a food blog for a few hours tomorrow.

[viiioca]

[ roevember day 1 - name ]

From the journal of Estelle de Laussienne, 12th of the 5th Astral Moon, 6 7A.E.

Of late, I have been thinking of names.

I am lucky to be one of the few with direct knowledge of a past life. Astarte, they said, was named for the brightest star in the sky, and by all accounts, she embodied this name with precision. ("Demanding" and "vain" were the descriptors Emet-Selch preferred, predictably, though Hythlodaeus had far kinder words.) When she took the seat of Azem, it is no great leap of imagination that she would have brought this certain intensity and clarity of self with her in her wanderings. She -- and those who came before her -- can be tracked as if by game trail, wending the length of the world. Azem, Azeyma, Azim. A sun-stamped coin; a painting on a cave wall; a fixture in the night sky.

I, too, am named after the stars. My parents did not have any ambition of doing so directly, of course; Ishgard has always found it most fashionable to name its children after saints and martyrs, and any meaning beyond that is incidental. Saint Estelle was a woman of high birth who ran afoul of her heretical family, and her devotion to Halone was such that they rushed to condemn her before she could do the same to them. She invoked her right to trial by combat rather than the simple exoneration of the Witchdrop and -- by witness accounts -- channeled the miraculous strength of the Fury Herself, laying a full outfit of Inquisitors low before succumbing to her wounds. That this is considered something auspicious to name a child is a particular quirk of our culture; more interesting to me is how it seems to have come to us from Duskwights fleeing persecution in the Shroud, its relation to Ishgardian's own word for star revealed by squinting. Étoile, estela, Estelle.

One must wonder if a name does not have its own tendency for wandering; if a name, separated from its soul, filters through new lands and peoples, and when it is ready to return to its owner, it is scrubbed of its old shape as neatly as if the Aetherial Sea itself has done it. Azem, Azeyma, Azim. Astarte to Estelle. Is it not appealing?

(G'raha has theorized instead that it's a corruption of a -- of course -- Late Allagan name that means "well-groomed," absorbed into a branch of the Elezen language at some point before the Hyuran exodus following the Fourth Umbral Calamity. It's good to know even his romanticism has its limits when matters of academic correctness are at hand. Could he not simply let me have this one?)

[elbiotipo]

Creating a purely carnivorous civilization is an interesting worldbuilding excercise because there are so many things about our current society that are basically the result of agriculture. For most settled societies, grain or their equivalent were virtually all their diet (there are so many phrases related to bread in Western culture, just like with rice in Asia and so on) and that was the way for milennia, compared to our more diverse diet. To imagine a completely carnivorous culture would be very interesting and probably not what you'd expect it to look.

Though there are historical precedents, the Mongols and the people of the Eurasian Steppe are your best thing to research if you're interested in societies where almost all the needs of life revolves around animals.

(remember as we say here "where the food comes from" is always the most important question you can ever ask)

[daisywords]

So annoying when people try to hold alternate-world fantasy to "historical accuracy" standards like. if I wanted historical accuracy I simply would have read/written historical fiction.

The only thing that should matter is if the alt world feels internally consistent/believable. Not "oh but back then" THERE IS NO BACK THEN. IT'S NOT REAL

and just because some aspects of the world (fashion, systems of government, levels of technology) feel consistent with a particular time period in our history doesn't mean that the author is obligated to stick to all other characteristics of that time period. The POINT of alt-world fantasy is to create a world in which the story they want to tell can work, and that's the metric I'm holding things to

[recurring-polynya]

My kid asked me to explain blood types to her today, which made me remember the odd little fact that in the character profiles that appeared at the ends of the earliest Bleach volumes, there are blood types listed for the human characters, but not for the shinigami characters. Shinigami obviously have blood, we've all seen it, we've seen so much of it, honestly, but is it like blood blood? Is blood transfusion a thing they do?

I did not have any particular recollection of anyone ever receiving a blood transfusion in Bleach, but I looked up all the hospital scenes I could think of off the top of my head. Both Byakuya nor Hinamori have sort of a notable absence of things sticking out of them. I'm no expert and I don't even particular like doctor shows, but this is a situation where I would expect both of them to have IVs for hydration, if nothing else. Hinamori's got a respirator and some mysterious carts off to her far side, at least, and maybe Byakuya's just far enough on the upswing that he doesn't need it anymore.

Next shot was the famous Rukia and Renji sharing a hospital room scene.

Renji's respirator goes...under his blanket? Is this right? This doesn't seem right. Rukia doesn't seem particularly attached to anything, although there's kind of a bundle of wires? tubes? coming out of her right shoulder area. You can see them better in this shot:

That sure doesn't look like medical grade tubing, the lower one looks kinda like Hihiou Zabimaru, tbh. IVs usually work by gravity, no? Also those tubes are way too big to be going into someone's veins.

Finally, here's Kira, getting his dubious Squad 12 medical procedure.

More shady, giant, intestine-ass looking tubes that... go into him? wtf. They're attached to a computer. Maybe these are data cables?

The upshot of all of this is that I don't think shinigami have blood transfusions. I can't imagine that they don't know about them, so I imagine it's more of a case of their blood is just part of their soul, like, all of them is just soul all the way down, and it would be nearly impossible to accept a transfusion that was made of someone else's soul (soulmate-enjoying fanfic writers, take note). They do like sticking tubes in people, tho.

This sucks because when I was originally thinking about this, of course I was thinking about all the blood Renji has in his body and whether or not he's a universal donor, because, frankly, if he is, I think they would have a special framed painting of him at Squad 4 and let him have as much donuts and apple juice as he wants.

I think the main reason manga list characters' bloodtypes anyway is because Japanese people use it as a personality test, similar to horoscopes. For the record, here are the characters whose blood types we know:

Ichigo - AO Orihime - BO Chad - AO Tatsuki - AO Isshin - AB Uryuu - AB Don Kanonji (????) - BO

When I was trying to look up what they meant, I found this hilarious graphic, thank you verywellmind dot com

Looks to me like these blood types were definitely chosen to tie into personality at least to some degree (I'm not sure about Isshin, but he probably has fake Urahara Shouten-brand gigai blood-substitute anyway, so I am choosing not to read too deeply into that). Anyway, along those lines, judging from this chart, if we wanted to bootstrap Renji's blood type from his personality, I think he would, in fact, clearly fit into the idiot-on-a-skateboard quadrant. So he is a universal donor! (or at least he would be, if he were filled with blood instead of high-concentration ghost juice.)

[vveedwacker]

Not the most visually interesting picture, but a rough idea of a couple characters. Two individuals who graduated together and intern at a research station in what was formerly known as North Western Alaska. They are in a set of company gifted quadrupedal pajamas, most likely heading to the dining hall. Both characters use she/her. Cole (Tirut) and Iver (crown)

Crowns are made by @charseraph

Tiruts are mine

[autumnmobile12]

My Hero Academia: Healthcare?

I don't know if any fanfic writers will find this useful or not, but I think the information is interesting and worth speculation in the My Hero setting. This also applies to any fanfic writers in the anime fandoms who want to have more immersive and in-depth writing. Obviously, writing fics that are 'accurate' is not a requirement since the point is to have fun, but here's some knowledge to use (or not use) if anyone is interested.

Obviously, Deku's been in the hospital a lot. A lot of the characters are injured and in the hospital a lot. But for all the hospital visits, nobody in the series is going to be bankrupted by astronomical healthcare costs. (Yes, that's a jab at America's system.) And it's not because the Pros, especially the popular ones, have money.

Here's why:

Quick rundown of how healthcare in Japan works: Everybody receives healthcare, everybody has health insurance. In Japan, your employer is legally required to provide you with health insurance. If you are unemployed, you will be on a community healthcare plan. There is also a plan for citizens over the age of 75. This also applies to foreigners who have established permanent residence of three months or longer.

Article 25 of Japan's Constitution is paraphrased as follows:

“all people shall have the right to maintain a certain standard of healthy and cultured life” and that “the state shall try to promote and improve the conditions of social welfare, social security, and public health” for this purpose.

I'm not going to reiterate the system in its entirety, but if you would like to learn more, this site here (the Article 25 quote I used is also found on that page) has a brief and comprehensive explanation of how healthcare is handled. However, one thing I am going to mention that is relevant for Deku and other Pros is the threshold out-of-pocket expense.

In Japan, citizens enrolled in healthcare do not spend more than ¥90,000 per month out of pocket, protecting them from financial disaster.

(To Americans, this may sound like a sweet deal, but hold your horses because Japan also funds this system through heavy taxation. Medical procedures are expensive and people will be paying for them one way or another.)

The question that needs asking now is how does this system apply to the hero society? Well, first off, since My Hero does take place in a slightly futuristic setting, we could take into consideration the system has been revised.

Assuming not much as changed, are heroes that operate their own agency technically considered business owners and are required to insure their employees and sidekicks?

Or...

Because they are all government employees, is the Safety Commission responsible for insuring all heroes and sidekicks no matter what they rank in their popularity?

Personally, I think it would be the latter since, in the coldest sense of the word, the heroes are essential to the Commission in upholding their system. So that makes them an asset. The Commission would want to protect its assets because as shady as they are, their own system could work against them. They certainly don't want heroes going on strike for lack of benefits or complaining the government doesn't take care of their people. So I assume it's the Commission who is covering insane healthcare costs on behalf of heroes.

(And since the system is probably funded by taxpayers' money, that also feeds into the prevalent societal discontent that's ongoing throughout the series.)

Now what about Deku and his classmates since they have not graduated and are not officially licensed yet? Honestly, I think it's probably UA itself that insures the students. That probably has to do with accreditation and so on, which is another matter entirely, but again, the backing is likely coming out of the Commission (and taxpayers') pockets.

And there you have it. Happy writing, happy research.