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contrarianarchon) wrote2018-12-14 11:46 pm
contrarianarchon) wrote2018-12-14 11:46 pm
Entry tags:
Worldbuilding Summaries
Okay, so the core settings I'm working on right now are:
- Four-Arts, which is urban fantasy without a masquerade. It's like the modern era, except in as much as it's changed by the four arts of magic (And probably a bit by the underlying physics being different; I haven't really explored what it means to be a scientist/physicist in this world); Conjury (the magic of summoning spirits and magical contracts), Aetheromancy (the magic of self-altering until you can perceive and manipulate environmental mana), Geomancy (the magic of ritualistically constructing items in ways which can influence destiny and the world) and Alchemy (The magic of putting chains on your soul; ideological commitments, and thereby gaining the power to make certain transformations on the self and the world.). Honestly, most of my work in this setting has gone into the metaphysics and social institutions directly relating to them (In particular, education, both modern and historical), rather than the more general geopolitics; the setting is a distorted "Real" world, in some ways. (Catholicism and Solomon both come up a lot in certain areas, but they're very different from IRL equivalents; Solomon is historically considered the greatest conjurer ever, and the spirits he summoned are one of the "Old Money" factions of the spirit realms, while Catholicism is much more deeply steeped in the idiosyncratic "Folk catholicism" traditions, with a lot more saint/angel worship)
- Rune-Carved, which is high-fantasy, originally created to explore the way a bunch of different cultures use/react to a single magic system. That magic system is a runic one; runes (technically, material differentials with curved geometric shapes) invoke various supernatural effects by "calling" "functions" "from" "the Universe". These functions can be simple, needing to be assembled into working arrays by complex patterns, or they can do nigh-incomprehensible effects all by themselves, depending on the precise runes used (Leading to a gradient between wild rune-masters who use unique and powerful runes with no theoretical basis, and academic runemasters, who use complex arrays of formal runes to produces relatively predictable and designable effects). The simplest runes can make light and heat; this alone defines civilization by being so much simpler than moving fuel from place to place.
The races, and their rough engagement with the magic system, are as follows:
- Humans (You've heard of these, I suspect), prepare - they use complex and often experimental runic arrays to create complex magic effects. Rituals, summons or constructs, and other great works are the domain of human runesmiths, and each city-state is defined by the great runic works they have secret knowledge of.
- The Monstra Nix are a hybrid of Elf and Dwarf; they are short and skinny and live deep underground. Their magic is one of bioengineering; warping life into more powerful and useful forms. They have the most advanced magic of any race, but it's very much a one-trick pony supporting the biowarping they do (They're also the default villains, due to their tendency to kidnap other races as feedstock).
- Archons are winged humans who worship the ideal of flight and the sun. Those of them who are sufficiently pure-blooded to fly under their own (Magical) power are the nobility, all others are peasants. They have a wide variety of magical forms of flight, and are known for using wands to lay runes on the fly, rather than pre-prepared artifacts like other factions.
- Naga are snake-people, nomadic apart from the well-hidden fortresses where they raise their children (Naga have a deep-seated instinct to protect children that is even more substantial and compulsive than the human equivalent). Their magic uses stacking runes, weak effects cast a thousand times, rather than a single strong effect. This results in peerless defensive structures, but is weak on active effects.
- Stoneborn are tall and strong (think D&D Goliaths); they live, for the most part in the southern jungles, in stone cities built over thousands of years. They scar themselves to build magic effects into their very flesh, and their shamans are the epitome of the wild rune-master, who knows a collection of simple and powerful effects accumulated over a long history, rather than a complex system for formulating new ones.
- The last race is the Collectors, who are much like giant preying mantises in general appearance. They trade nomadically. Unfortunately for them, the structure of their eyes makes them incapable of easily determining geometry, emphasizing instead motion and distance vision. This is generally a good trade-off, but it makes doing rune-magic nigh-impossible, so for them, rune-magic is a thing of carefully horded scrolls and artifacts, generally bought from humans or monstra nix.
- Elf-Fall, which is hard-sci-fi setting (if not actually rocketpunk, then certainly rocketpunk-adjacent), with what I consider a medium amount of transhumanism? It's a kinda weird setting, to be honest, since it's a bunch of different sub-ideas merged into one; a world where the greater part of earth is rendered uninhabitable or turned over to wildlife reserve as conventional society flees into arcologies and low-earth-orbit habitats, and the greater solar system grows strange and independent. Highlights include:
- The Ancient race of "Elves", which are a species native to mars. While powerful and possessed of advanced technology, they could not bring together the political unity to respond to the death of their planet, leaving only a few survivors (mostly rendered very far off from the "Native template" by various transhuman (transmartian? tranself?) alterations.) to survive into the modern day. The eponymous Elf-Fall was the decision of some of the few surviving factions to come out of stasis and try and join human society, much to the distress of all the humans who didn't expect a couple of thousand elder beings to try and come hang out.
- The fey-wilds, a sub-setting intended to contrast the survivors in the wastes against the fey-like arcology-dwellers. Presumes some weird sports amongst the arcology dwellers, WRT to feral-animal culling being an national sport, but otherwise quite plausible, and deeply amusing, to me.
- The Synthesis, a clade derived from a series of incredible unethical experiments in a Saturn-orbit colony. The people who made them thought they were making a better humanity, and refused to have any interactions with their erstwhile children, so as to not "taint" them with their own unethical actions. The Synthesis themselves are generally adapted for living in space, have broad enhancements to cognition and health, and a form of bio-wi-fi which allows for empathy, limited telepathy and the sharing of lucid dreams between members of the clade. (They also did quite a good job of absorbing optimism from old-fashioned sci-fi, and have quite a nice little post-scarcity society on the edge of known space).
- It's my dumping ground for spacer traditions, with heraldry and bells and gardens everywhere. The spacers in question are mostly holed up in the asteroid belt, but they are the mainstay of the industrial population within
- It also has my Venus setting! Which is a partially-teraformed place of vast balloon-cities, and of social tensions between the "City-folk" who just happen to live on Venus, and the genetically-engineered settlers, and the "Steeplejacks Guild" who use vast amounts of cybernetics and invasive surgery to be able to maintain the machinery which all civilization on the planet depends on.
I have others, but those three are the ones I'm mostly working on right now. Feel free to ask questions, etc etc. Now that I've got the basics down, when I catch myself ranting at myself about a world-building point, I might try typing it up and posting it instead.
- Four-Arts, which is urban fantasy without a masquerade. It's like the modern era, except in as much as it's changed by the four arts of magic (And probably a bit by the underlying physics being different; I haven't really explored what it means to be a scientist/physicist in this world); Conjury (the magic of summoning spirits and magical contracts), Aetheromancy (the magic of self-altering until you can perceive and manipulate environmental mana), Geomancy (the magic of ritualistically constructing items in ways which can influence destiny and the world) and Alchemy (The magic of putting chains on your soul; ideological commitments, and thereby gaining the power to make certain transformations on the self and the world.). Honestly, most of my work in this setting has gone into the metaphysics and social institutions directly relating to them (In particular, education, both modern and historical), rather than the more general geopolitics; the setting is a distorted "Real" world, in some ways. (Catholicism and Solomon both come up a lot in certain areas, but they're very different from IRL equivalents; Solomon is historically considered the greatest conjurer ever, and the spirits he summoned are one of the "Old Money" factions of the spirit realms, while Catholicism is much more deeply steeped in the idiosyncratic "Folk catholicism" traditions, with a lot more saint/angel worship)
- Rune-Carved, which is high-fantasy, originally created to explore the way a bunch of different cultures use/react to a single magic system. That magic system is a runic one; runes (technically, material differentials with curved geometric shapes) invoke various supernatural effects by "calling" "functions" "from" "the Universe". These functions can be simple, needing to be assembled into working arrays by complex patterns, or they can do nigh-incomprehensible effects all by themselves, depending on the precise runes used (Leading to a gradient between wild rune-masters who use unique and powerful runes with no theoretical basis, and academic runemasters, who use complex arrays of formal runes to produces relatively predictable and designable effects). The simplest runes can make light and heat; this alone defines civilization by being so much simpler than moving fuel from place to place.
The races, and their rough engagement with the magic system, are as follows:
- Humans (You've heard of these, I suspect), prepare - they use complex and often experimental runic arrays to create complex magic effects. Rituals, summons or constructs, and other great works are the domain of human runesmiths, and each city-state is defined by the great runic works they have secret knowledge of.
- The Monstra Nix are a hybrid of Elf and Dwarf; they are short and skinny and live deep underground. Their magic is one of bioengineering; warping life into more powerful and useful forms. They have the most advanced magic of any race, but it's very much a one-trick pony supporting the biowarping they do (They're also the default villains, due to their tendency to kidnap other races as feedstock).
- Archons are winged humans who worship the ideal of flight and the sun. Those of them who are sufficiently pure-blooded to fly under their own (Magical) power are the nobility, all others are peasants. They have a wide variety of magical forms of flight, and are known for using wands to lay runes on the fly, rather than pre-prepared artifacts like other factions.
- Naga are snake-people, nomadic apart from the well-hidden fortresses where they raise their children (Naga have a deep-seated instinct to protect children that is even more substantial and compulsive than the human equivalent). Their magic uses stacking runes, weak effects cast a thousand times, rather than a single strong effect. This results in peerless defensive structures, but is weak on active effects.
- Stoneborn are tall and strong (think D&D Goliaths); they live, for the most part in the southern jungles, in stone cities built over thousands of years. They scar themselves to build magic effects into their very flesh, and their shamans are the epitome of the wild rune-master, who knows a collection of simple and powerful effects accumulated over a long history, rather than a complex system for formulating new ones.
- The last race is the Collectors, who are much like giant preying mantises in general appearance. They trade nomadically. Unfortunately for them, the structure of their eyes makes them incapable of easily determining geometry, emphasizing instead motion and distance vision. This is generally a good trade-off, but it makes doing rune-magic nigh-impossible, so for them, rune-magic is a thing of carefully horded scrolls and artifacts, generally bought from humans or monstra nix.
- Elf-Fall, which is hard-sci-fi setting (if not actually rocketpunk, then certainly rocketpunk-adjacent), with what I consider a medium amount of transhumanism? It's a kinda weird setting, to be honest, since it's a bunch of different sub-ideas merged into one; a world where the greater part of earth is rendered uninhabitable or turned over to wildlife reserve as conventional society flees into arcologies and low-earth-orbit habitats, and the greater solar system grows strange and independent. Highlights include:
- The Ancient race of "Elves", which are a species native to mars. While powerful and possessed of advanced technology, they could not bring together the political unity to respond to the death of their planet, leaving only a few survivors (mostly rendered very far off from the "Native template" by various transhuman (transmartian? tranself?) alterations.) to survive into the modern day. The eponymous Elf-Fall was the decision of some of the few surviving factions to come out of stasis and try and join human society, much to the distress of all the humans who didn't expect a couple of thousand elder beings to try and come hang out.
- The fey-wilds, a sub-setting intended to contrast the survivors in the wastes against the fey-like arcology-dwellers. Presumes some weird sports amongst the arcology dwellers, WRT to feral-animal culling being an national sport, but otherwise quite plausible, and deeply amusing, to me.
- The Synthesis, a clade derived from a series of incredible unethical experiments in a Saturn-orbit colony. The people who made them thought they were making a better humanity, and refused to have any interactions with their erstwhile children, so as to not "taint" them with their own unethical actions. The Synthesis themselves are generally adapted for living in space, have broad enhancements to cognition and health, and a form of bio-wi-fi which allows for empathy, limited telepathy and the sharing of lucid dreams between members of the clade. (They also did quite a good job of absorbing optimism from old-fashioned sci-fi, and have quite a nice little post-scarcity society on the edge of known space).
- It's my dumping ground for spacer traditions, with heraldry and bells and gardens everywhere. The spacers in question are mostly holed up in the asteroid belt, but they are the mainstay of the industrial population within
- It also has my Venus setting! Which is a partially-teraformed place of vast balloon-cities, and of social tensions between the "City-folk" who just happen to live on Venus, and the genetically-engineered settlers, and the "Steeplejacks Guild" who use vast amounts of cybernetics and invasive surgery to be able to maintain the machinery which all civilization on the planet depends on.
I have others, but those three are the ones I'm mostly working on right now. Feel free to ask questions, etc etc. Now that I've got the basics down, when I catch myself ranting at myself about a world-building point, I might try typing it up and posting it instead.
no subject
In Four-Arts, what kinds of commitments can produce what kinds of effects?
For Rune-Carved, do you have a map? (I'm trash and like maps for mappy things.) And are there different cultures (multiracial, or within races) that have developed traditions different than the main racial ones you outline?
For Elf-Fall, count me as also curious about the ancient martians. What's their psychology like, what was their civilization like?
no subject
- the commitment/understanding of the slow life; a life of growing old and doing good honest work, will result in a kind of aura of peace. This is an alchemical oath people can take without realizing it, so it mostly manifests as a kind of peace aura - a statistical tendency for things around them to take peaceful, quiet, safe, and honest routes, rather than aggressive, dangerous and dishonest ones. People who know they have it can, with practice, focus the power to act as a calm emotions type thing or even cancel momentum on, say, bullets or a car-crash, but it takes a lot out of them.
- The Yggdrasil Project is a cult (in as much as all alchemy-using groups are cults) born out of the 60s space-flight-type movement. They want to go to space. They've done a good job of designing oaths which help shortcut the difficulties of space-travel; momentum generation/gravity cancelation, the accelerated growth of plants, and maintaining environmental conditions are amongst them (Only thier founding saint has managed to achieve FTL in any capacity, but he's sure it's theoretically possible to teach). They're commitments are kinda onerous; a mix of remembrance and pilgrimages to understand where humanity has come from, and where it is going; I haven't figured out the exact details, but hiking through a place full of green things, and visiting the moon are definitely both needed for mid-level oaths.
- The Hero-Cult of Gilgamesh (which is devoted to emulation more than worshop, of various classical-type heros) has a basic oath whereby nigh-tautological commitment to your own conviction allows a sort of borderline anime toughness; the ability to endure and survive things spending willpower instead of physical integrity/stamina (Even things for which this is nigh pointless).
Rune-Carved: I don't really have a map; the setting is approximately Europe-shaped? The Monstra Nix live in not-russia, the Archons in not-france/italy/spain, the humans in the middle of those two, the naga have a venice-type nation (and secret fortresses on a bunch of islands and less-inhabited deltas or mountains or wherever) but mostly just wander around.
None of the races are politically or culturally unified, but those common threads do stay pretty strong; humans have the most variation, but it's still variation within the theme of preparation heavy artifcing and rituals. In particular, I suspect, though, that the slaving-produced enclaves of Stoneborn have pretty distinct magical traditions from their native forebears. Naga also probably pick up a lot of the magic from where they live, if they can? The core use of their native magics, is defensive, and used primarily for their semi-secret fortresses, so them picking up some other tricks from humans or archons would be unsurprising.
Since Fibbonaci_Reminder also asked about elves, I'll put a write-up about them on my too-do list, rather than putting it here in the comments?
no subject