Write something about your setting, and the rest of us will help you develop it

So the rest of humanity, are they split into different factions? or are they just spread across it? Additionally, what is it specifically that causes the conflict in the first place between the "Grashval" and the "U'll"?

 

Currently I have a very developed setting in my science fiction writing. However I have found one issue among the depth of one of the factions. Firstly to simply outline the universe is it all takes place in one galaxy, specifically in one sector. The scale is large however, each faction has thousands of colonies and hundreds of billions in population. I will only focus on the largest faction here as it has the fault I need help with. This faction is called "The Storm" and is comprised of the entirety of three species. It is ruled over by one main race known as the "Ravengers" (Intentional typo of Ravagers.) who originally uplifted the two other races: Ivarg and the Ushahalahu.

Long ago the Ravengers came to the galaxy from another, they were the most powerful faction at the time and came as the Ravenger empire, also known as the "Warpath". The Warpath the galaxy witnessed was a small chunk of the actual Warpath that tactically retreated from a powerful adversary. To get their strength back any species they came across they enslaved and took their resources, or just flat out committed genocide to get more resources. Literally nobody had any hope to stop them as they had unparalleled brutality and savagery (think giant viking/mongol space lizard war machines.)

the Ravengers came across the Ivarg and the Ushahalahu who only scraped as space faring civilisations, yet had similar warrior based societies that were extreme enough to be used as cannon fodder against their adversary they were preparing for. the Ravengers enslaved them and forcefully uplifted them in the process so they can be used as infantry.

The Ivarg have an insane culture, they are avian/reptilian peoples (search up bearded vulture for reference in appearance.) that believe suffering cleanses the soul and pleasure weakens them. Additionally they have a dangerous obsession with death and have a culture that obsesses over sado-masochism with many acts of self mutilation as common ritual practice. They try to live in constant agony so their spirits may reach a type of "nirvana" after death to compensate for their suffering. Therefore they made excellent troops to send against the Ravengers adversaries as they didn't fear pain or death.

however the Ushahalahu (Ushar for short.) I cannot find a justifiable cultural trait to put them on the level of their Ivarg brethren. originally I designed them as shamanistic peoples that value nature, and designed them as tall, reptilian/mammal based hunter gatherers. And with the Ivarg based on ancient Aztec and Muslim culture I thought of the Ushar being more Maori or ancient Samoan like in culture, yet I cannot define something unique that would give them their own twisted and unique edge. I was thinking of possibly creating a type of voodoo culture but to make another death obsessed people would be repetitive, no?

 

Interesting scenario, MrI. How about we approach it from the point of view of skills first and develop the backstory later? So you have the Ivarg who are tactically strong and have a rational militaristic style. Then there's the Ivarg who are all about the brute force and gore. So how about making the Ushar really sneaky?

They could be physically weak, but with a lot of stealth-based skills and crude intelligence that makes them excellent spies, snipers, thieves etc. If you intend for them to remain under Ivarg control, you have to be careful not to make them smart enough to mount a successful rebellion. Maybe the Ivarg keep them under their thumbs by controlling some substance to which they are addicted, or some McGuffin they revere and fear? I'm thinking something like a race of gollums.

 

There are technically three factions, the Grashval, the Senari, and then the rest of humanity, but the Senari are very secretive and humanity is just sort of spread across U'll. The other two continents apart from Ulthera haven't really been explored. As for the conflict, it's mainly to do with the primordial forces mentioned before, the Hallow and the Abyss.

The Grashval are worshippers of the Abyss, but the world is currently in an 'age of light', where the Hallow is seen as 'good' and the Abyss as 'bad'. The Senari are worshippers of the Hallow but because the Hallow is currently dominant, they co-exist well with mankind. It boils down to the fact that the Grashval see the people of U'll as the oppressors, which is why they raid and attack their towns. On the other hand, U'll essentially sees the Grashval as terrorists, which only deepens the conflict between the two.

 

Actually that is something I have already mind you. the Ravengers who are the most powerful of the three enforce an authoritarian religion/philosophy called the code of Jerahe which is somewhat similar to say odinism and reproduces this warrior culture among the others. Like a form of indoctrination let's say.

I'm all for the sneaky approach for the Ushar, like assassins, snipers and Recon. And it does compliment their hunter gatherer design.

Although I'm still left with the issue of how to give them that unique edge to fit in and compliment the others. The Ravengers are giant tanks that cannot be physically or mentally matched and are more or less the "overlords.", the Ivarg are insane horde like menace, and the Ushar, naturist assassins? and the logical thought since their culture doesn't match they'd try to rebel or cause more damage than good, which causes more problems for my setting.

 

Yet why? I mean if it's just due to religious differences then fine you could potentially just do a Viking set up and maybe put in how they denounce their faith and raid them.

Yet as for the U'll seeing them as a sort of menace you could draw on our own history with how Christians viewed pagans, and how really it was the Christians who we're the aggressors.

 

They seem to complement the others well enough, the problem I think is how they fit in. That's where the control element really needs to be strong. The Ivarg's hold over the Ushar needs to be something more than indoctrination, something that is a constant threat/presence stopping them from stepping out of line. Maybe a brain implant at birth that causes severe pain if they think rebellious thoughts?

 

My new setting is a bronze age world where the deities exist in both the physical "they can stand right next to you" sense, and the spiritual, "they're all around us" sense. Their perspective is tied to the physical part, so when it is destroyed, they lose connection to the world till they reform, normally be possessing a human and mutating the body to the desired shape. Because of this, they've decided to treat the world as a game. They fight till only one of them is left, then they wipe out humanity back to the stone age and clean everything up. At the moment I have eight gods, those being:

Kronus, Champion of Ashes
Trahax The Toad
Archimon Of Vellum
Sapia, The Decayed Crone
Brux of The Bronze Wind
Reina, Maiden of The Hunt
Forgelord Vulkan
Pulchira, The Summer Queen

I have ideas for two more, but am unsure if I should just leave it there. Otherwise, any questions?

 

I suppose my setting is the area I'm struggling most to make real.

My novel is set in 1910s/1920s Germany in a little town near to Munich, in the foothills of the Alps. The main family live in a grand Schloss perched on a hill which dominates the town, and the mist often falls so the inhabitants cannot see the town that they dominate. From any position in the town, all that can be seen is the Schloss.

There is a small Jewish enclave which is quite reclusive in the west of the town, while in the east is a thick woodland. On the other side of this woodland, on the road to Munich, is a tiny (nameless) hamlet which was once a farmstead but is now dominated by a Beer Hall that many of the characters frequent. This is the poorest area of town. In the centre is the main road with provincial style shops and houses. Everybody knows everybody else, and even though people try to keep secrets, the walls are permeable.

I think the thing I'm really struggling with is the town's layout. I want it to have thematic meaning (ie. some people are geographically outcasts - the Jews, the Beer Hall owner etc.), but I can't quite picture the map in my mind in relation to the main hill. I also am REALLY struggling with a name, both for the Big House (which I really feel needs a name), the main town and the village in the east. A lot of my ideas feel a bit too English!

 

So my first question is how you're setting up your Jewish enclave and what role it plays in the story. You should be careful here in that, at the point in History you're writing at, you're at a point where Jews are becoming more secularized and assimilated into broader European culture - especially in Germany. Yes there was a history of anti-semitism, but you're sort of at the peak of Jewish integration and secularization. You might see touches of what's coming in terms of rising anti-semitism post-WWI, but it's important to remember that Naziism wasn't exactly building on a consistent drumbeat - anti-semitism goes in ebbs and flows, and this era you're dealing with is an ebb...it's the calm right before the storm hits, and if anything the local Jewish population is likely to have a sense of false security. From their perspective, without foreknowledge, Jews have never had it so good - they're existing at arguably the least anti-Semitic time in Western History, and they probably think that things are going to continue to get better.

It's also important to remember that shtetl culture - the sort of existence you see in "Fiddler on the Roof" - was a picture of Jewish life under the RUSSIAN EMPIRE (which would be modern Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, and parts of Poland). Jews in Germany at that time are going to be richer, more integrated into the surrounding culture, and more secularized.

 

Thanks for you help!

Anti-semitism plays an important role in my story in a subtle way, but it never goes into outright violence or hostility. It's more a general distrust between the two communities which I hope to suggest in the geography. On top of this, the Jewish characters in my story are split into two groups, the more secularised Jews as you mention, who are recent incomers from Munich looking for handsome country homes, and the "shtetl" Jews. From the research I have done, there were a number of Russian Jews in Germany in this period, especially near the bigger cities and after the 1905 pogroms which pushed many people west. Two of my main characters are Jewish, one is the secular type who feels very much part of the town, so I am considering having his family living on the high street with non-Jewish characters. He only goes searching for his roots during his experiences in WW1, and maybe he will move back to the "Jewish" district after the war. The other is a recently arrived Orthodox Jew who loses her faith during the war. She ends up in a love triangle with the male Jewish character I mentioned, and another non-Jewish character. Neither is the son-in-law her family envisioned, and I almost want to use the geography to show how isolated she is in particular, firstly because she is a Jew, secondly because she is a recent immigrant and thirdly because she is working class.

 

That all sounds workable. And you've done your research.

 

What objects are those gods currently tied to? And are they protagonists or antagonists? Is one god the protagonist? Or are there humans fighting against the gods and trying to destroy/save the objects?

 

At the moment the gods are tied to their own physical bodies, which have been around for three thousand years this cycle. To put it simply, when a god dies, their spirit is shattered into fragments for a certain period of time. While they're sewing themselves back together, they watch the others playing and have fun. Once their spirit is fully together, they hop into a random person's body and, over the course of decades, change it to their liking. Trahax the Toad has that name for a reason, she gives the body rear jointed legs, warty skin, and a rather large tongue.

As for whether they are the protagonists or the antagonists, it depends on whose perspective I write the story from, and, if I do a series, it might switch to different sides.

 

my setting is made up of four countries: Modrye, Tropia, Tund and Desdrit. Those of the more geographically inclined may have figured this out already, but each country is stuck impermanently in a single season/climate. Modrye is very moderate with spring-like weather and thick, humid breezes. Tropia is tropical (Duh). Tund is Tundra and Desdrit is desert.

Feedback?

 

I've decided to try and zombify this thread. Anyone want to post their setting?

 

Yes, I want to. But are people really going to make the effort? The thread died once, why shouldn't it again?

 

Because we have a new influx of people, now, @Mouthwash , tell us about your setting.

 

Hmm. Well, I haven't yet decided whether or not to make some aspects of the setting a mystery at the beginning, so this will not be a complete description.

The story starts with a nonhuman protagonist. Her species is angel/demon-like in appearance, resembling Skyrim vampire lords with feathered wings. They are immortal, can regenerate limbs, never sleep and can breath fire. The race grows quickly and reaches sexual maturity by age 30-35, but after that revert to a slower growth that continues throughout life. It follows a general template but can veer off in other directions as a result of environmental needs or conscious desire - it's possible for some to develop extra sensory organs, poison sacs, beaks, extra limbs or tentacles, blades, etc. There are also magical abilities (telekinesis, telepathy), but they manifest as aptitudes.

Now this is all set in a primitive Conan-style world. Magic works. There are intelligent races, but none familiar to us. They rise and fall cyclically - after their initial period of growth, they almost always fall into some kind of stable decadence and lose the drive to keep building. It's not a conspiracy; there aren't any aliens sabotaging them to keep the zoo functional, it's simply that there are no self-catalyzing technological paths to pursue - why use medicine if you could just sacrifice some slaves in a ritual to keep yourself healthy? Now and then a species manages to find long-term stability, but most simply lose ground to natural dangers or younger races. (The only exception to the process is the protagonist's race, who seem to be of a fundamentally different nature.)

Much like birds and bats fill the same niche despite being of far removed ancestry, the decline of an intelligent race allows dumber creatures to take their spot. For reasons I haven't decided on yet (help me out here?), there's some kind of quota for sapience in any particular environment. At a certain threshold, a Lamarckian process happens very quickly - chimp-like intelligence to metalworking within a couple of centuries.

One idea I've had is Platonic attributes which have to be manifested in the physical world. That would neatly explain the need for intelligence, but the question is which attributes and what effect they would have on the world. What could you do with this concept?

 

1.Hmm, my first question is wh haven't the immortal bat people overpopulated and took over the earth. They'd need to be dying at a remarkable rate to keep things stable, not to mention that if they grow forever, then the truly oldest ones would be gigantic, meaning even harder to kill.

2. Why do the cultures not at the top not develop medicine? Surely rural communities or small groups who either don't have access to slaves or the rituals would need it? Not to mention technology like stonecutting, seafaring and metal work.

3. What makes them separate from the cycle?

4. How does magic work? Does all of it require sacrifice? Or are there other power sources it can draw from?

5. One option is to have this powered by magic, or if you want to go off the walls say that the spirits of each race congregate around their descendants and attempt to share knowledge of the past, but can only be heard when there is a large amount of them?

 

(Note: This is an in-development setting for a fantasy/murder mystery)

Humans have maintained a cautious, tolerant relationship with the magically, dubbed (for the time being) "Arcanes". inclined for generations. They accept the objective truth that these users of the magicks are an integral part of their society, able to utilize their abilities for the betterment of civilization, but nothing of the sort could negate the fear one naturally feels towards someone capable of killing you with their will alone should they think to.

"Grimoires" are magical sects of the Arcanes' minds that store what has been described as hereditary "knowledge". These "Grimoires", named after the family to which they belong, exist innately in the minds of Arcane from birth, but can only be accessed and utilized once the Arcane has reached their Age of Accountability. This "Grimoire" assures that all magical knowledge belonging to parent is passed on to child at the moment of birth, including the magical abilities at one point development by their distant ancestors. Use of the magicks is limited by a individual family basis, wherein one cannot use a spell or ability that their ancestors never knew and to develop new spells is a mystical art lost to the ages.

 

Ah, they don't breed like a normal species. It's a lot slower for them.

Technology builds on itself through trial-and-error selection. Amongst a million failed ideas, only a single good one is necessary to alter everyone's lives. Magic, instead, penalizes productivity and makes knowledge dangerous. Races in my world plateau at a level when magic becomes more efficient than anything else.

You'll have to read it to find out.

I haven't fleshed it out yet. I don't think it's all based on sacrifice, but it's generally a zero-sum thing.

Huh?

 

That still doesn't change the fact that population growth is exponential.

But as I asked, what about small communities without access to magic? Surely they would have to make a way to help themselves?

 

1. Does anyone abuse this power, claiming they should rule due to their families being more powerful.

2. Why/how was the ability to create new spells lost?

3. Do the magical lineages interbreed to have their children have both talents?

 

Then how did they not develope some kind of technology around this magic? Or some kind of a system? What I mean is, if magic replaces farming, then I see how some people will structure this into a magical industry of sorts. That way civilisations can grow, but dependant on the magic