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World Building General Thread

    • 64 posts
    June 26, 2017 10:48 AM EDT

    I think most of us Vault-dwellers are suckers for fantasy, lore, history and world-building. I have had several interesting discussions and reads throughout the Vault about people's ideas for fantasy-novel series, general world building tips and everything inbetween. So, I thought it was time to make Lounge discussion dedicated to World Building: a place to share epic plot ideas, minute details, fictional metafiction, character concepts, homespun-histories and much much more.

     

    Now, I’ll be starting out with sharing a little of my personal “fantasy world” that I’ve been working on in my free time for over two years. It’s a world that came to be when I asked myself what would happen if I combined Mad-Max, The Black Company, Game of Thrones, Lord of The Rings and The Gentleman Bastards… not to forget elements of Warhammer lore and TES… a truly dystopian fantasy world.

    I wanted something inhospitable and dead, where traveling is something only the hardest people dare venture, a place where magic is dying, alchemy is being weaponized and things are generally turning to shit. No heroes. I want to capture the “life is shit” feeling of a modern war-movie like Saving private Ryan and Band Of Brothers. Yea, I have over a thousand names listed on a document and a bunch of history sheets.

    But for now I’ll be sharing a small part of the world-map I’ve been making via Pixelmator:

     

     

     

    So yea, what are your ideas? What inspires you when it comes to world building? Do you have any ideas you’d want to share and discuss? I hope this thread will prove useful :D 

    • 585 posts
    June 26, 2017 11:34 AM EDT

    Crackin' idea Blue! I've dabbled in worldbuilding before, well, I've got some cool ideas in my head that I haven't written down, but I browse r/wordbuilding and r/magicbuilding all the time so I've got the general idea.

    I love Greek mythology and I read the lore of Magic the Gathering from time to time (brilliant stories, but not as good as our writers obviously!) which had a series based around a similar idea to mine, so thats what I've been thinking of. I'm never gonna do anything with it and I doubt I'll even jot any notes down, but its fun to think about from time to time.

    How did you handle the economy in your post-apocalyptic world? I think Fallout did it quite eloquently, but I struggle to think of anything more than 'I've got a bigger gun, now hand over the goodies'.

    • 64 posts
    June 26, 2017 11:42 AM EDT

    Zonnonn said:

    How did you handle the economy in your post-apocalyptic world? I think Fallout did it quite eloquently, but I struggle to think of anything more than 'I've got a bigger gun, now hand over the goodies'.

     

    Well, it's a fantasy world first and foremost, and not so much a post apocalypse in the way of Fallout, but more in the way that the world is dry and barren. Economy is handled in coins, diamonds, gold, silver, trading and so on, much like any other fantasy. I like the idea of people having to fight for minerals to afford water, like in Dune, bu i dunno if that would make sense to me...

    • 585 posts
    June 27, 2017 8:09 AM EDT

    BlueDremora said:

    Well, it's a fantasy world first and foremost, and not so much a post apocalypse in the way of Fallout, but more in the way that the world is dry and barren. Economy is handled in coins, diamonds, gold, silver, trading and so on, much like any other fantasy. I like the idea of people having to fight for minerals to afford water, like in Dune, bu i dunno if that would make sense to me...

    Ah ok, that makes sense. So are settlements and civilisation as a whole based around mining and excavation to recover these minerals, or is it more scavenging ina traditional sense? I imagine that someone who sets up their faction on a mine would be exceedingly powerful.

     

    • 55 posts
    July 10, 2017 5:40 PM EDT

    So I think this is about as good a spot as I can think of to post this..... A side project of mine off and on since last fall is creating my own fantasy world/system that is based upon DnD style rules/races/etc. I would really, really love to share some of my ideas with someone if they are free sometime. I have far too much to be able to post on here, pages of the world i came up with, the map, the gods, lots of organizations, NPC lists, leaders, even things like a calendar system and political/cultural information. If anyone would like to find a way to be able to let me talk to you and tell you about some of the things I have created just for a sounding board that would be amazing. I live in such a rural area that the internet is really my own means of sharing my creations with my fellow nerds of the world. If anyone is interested in learning about my world and my works please shoot me a message on here and we can go about figuring out a way to share and communicate. Thanks!

    • 12 posts
    September 30, 2017 4:21 PM EDT

    I see this thread is a bit old (Relativeley anyway) so excuse me for resurrecting it but what a fantastic thread, right up my alley!

    First off: Your world sounds fantastic, and I'm saying that as a person who's not really a fan of dystopian stuff. How the **** do you mix and match all those different themes you mention though?

    To Amornar: Isn't there some kind of Tamriel Vault Discord server? If not, maybe those of us passionate about world building and looking to share, inspire and to be inspired could form a group chat on Discord? Just a thought :)

    I have had it in my head to write and build my own fantasy world since I first read LotR when I was eleven. Only recently when I found the youtube channel of one fantasy author named Jesper Schmidt and began writing my own fan fiction stories of TES (which is what I drew me here) did I begin world building for real, putting it all in writing.

    My world draws inspiration from nordic/scandinavian folk lore and mythology, the game Heroes of Might and Magic 3, LotR and of course many more sources like TES when it comes to my own thought up calendar. I got notes and scribbles of gods, history, countries, characters, factions, creatures and beings and more. It's all a great mess so far. :)

    • 55 posts
    October 1, 2017 3:46 PM EDT
    Simpa5- Your world sounds really cool. I really love any and all Scandinavian/Nordic inspirations. I would love to compare notes sometime! I am always really excited to share what I have. It is always a work in progress but it gets bigger and more in depth every month. A discord server would be a great way.