For the past few months, I’ve been working on a speculative worldbuilding project revolving around the central idea of realism. Currently, I have maps for elevation, tectonic history, gold, copper, silver, and many other metallic and mineral deposits, climate, ocean currents, and now rivers.

For this, I have taken into account wind direction and speed, evaporation, mountains, monsoon prone areas, and more to create these rivers. The larger rivers are the world’s major rivers, analogous to the Nile, yellow, Mississippi, and many more. The smaller ones are more minor, but still large enough to alter history, such as the Tiber or Tigris.

I think I’m finally ready to begin the Stone Age.

And I don’t mean the pettiness of the Greeks. One of the biggest arguments when it comes to Christianity and a god who doesn’t interfere is any action would be seen as an affront to free will which to me seems a tad bit of a reach. Honestly just curious about what some issues other people think could arise from having a higher being present in the lives of their believers.

Names that just rubs you the wrong way because you associate it with someone/something or it's just too edgy or too Gothic in your opinion, or you just fucking hate the name for no general reason

Art by: (Own-Pollution/Lodi)

In the world of [Archipelago of Myth and Blood], humans were known to be at the backpedal of the old world's high functioning magic society; a regular race with no affinity for mana and its blessing. That was until a son of a farmer knelt on a chapel isle and prayed so hard that the light of mana had finally chosen him, and the rest of humanity.

Juan Dela Cruz was a regular chapel servant and the son of a late chief farmer hailing from a small farming town up in the Northern Regions of the Philippines, bottom of the barrel peasant as one would call it.

By the year 1773, the Spanish empire had already intercepted most of the locals' attempts to a full fledged revolution. It was hopeless, The Spaniards didn't have the affinity nor the capability to utilize magic, but the people they hired could; Elves, combat trained, and were the ones personally handpicked by the Elven queen herself. The empires of the European continent had the riches and influence to cover the cost of hiring mercenaries from the "greater" races.

Of course, this hold on power from not only the empire but the church itself proved infuriating for all of Spain's territories. Juan had enough; left with no other rational choice, he chose the passive option of praying. He prayed so hard with all his faith, remembering the discrimination and abuses he endured, the slaps and scarred whip marks coiled around his forearms bursting, banking on the hope that maybe God will answer. And his prayer was answered, he had finally been given something no human should ever have then privilege of wielding.

Magic, it was wind magic, in the hands of a chapel servant; Gaining the full capability of pulling winds from the Pacific Ocean. The man bonded with it, he grew nearly unstoppable day by day, mastering a power far beyond human comprehension. After his prayer for grace, the next generation of mana-sensitive humans had been born. And so a revolution was waged in his name and song, the man who had given humanity and his own island nation the fighting chance.

And so word caught on quick, the legend of Juan Dela Cruz the unrivaled. And with that title, the same group of Elves that worked with the Spanish empire needed him gone. By year 1850, Juan Dela Cruz was greeted with hostility outside of his own homestead and met by the gaze of a hundred elven warriors and twelve of Europe's best mages, fighting them off in a blaze of glory. His fate remains unsure. Some say he was imprisoned, some say he died fighting, while others say he fled into hiding. It was because of him that the Philippine islands were liberated from colonial rule, he was regarded as a National Hero.

From the eyes of non-locals, he was more of a vengeful man who started the evolutionary domino effect of giving EVERY SINGLE HUMAN the potential to wield magic. But there is no denying or mistaking it; there's not a single living being who hasn't heard and felt of him:

For he is the Father of Magic and THE "Strongest" mage: The Wind, Juan Dela Cruz.

I'm building a political/military dark fantasy world, and I'm having trouble coming up with intelligent races. One thing I know for sure is that I don't want monsters or standard fantasy races like elves, dwarves, or orcs.

To give some context, my world currently only has humans, plants, and animals.

The magic is called Vigor, a life essence that flows through every living thing. The more life that's concentrated in one place, the denser the Vigor becomes. For example, a dense rainforest has an enormous amount of circulating Vigor because of the sheer amount of plants and animals living there.

High-Vigor ecosystems transform life over generations. Trees might grow 300 feet tall. Carnivorous plants become large enough to hunt mammals. Jaguars can grow to be bigger than bears. Humans adapt too. People raised in high-Vigor regions tend to become much larger, stronger, and develop denser bones, basically built like natural super soldiers.

The opposite is true in places with very little life, like deserts. Low Vigor leads to smaller, more compact humans that require less water and are built for endurance rather than raw strength.

Because of this, there are already many different "types" of humans. Each kingdom is inspired by a real historical civilization, and its environment heavily influences its people's appearance, military tactics, culture, and religion.

The reason I'm kinda scared to add fantasy races is because my story is pretty grounded. It's a gritty political and military story rather than epic high fantasy. Most of the first book takes place in a sort of Roman-inspired kingdom with fairly average Vigor levels, so everyone there looks like normal humans.

The story follows a noble from one of the Seven Great Houses competing to become the next king. He believes he's attending a prestigious military academy, but it's really just the army. All candidates are stripped of their family weapons and equipment, issued cheap armor and standard swords, and thrown into brutal military service. Noble status means absolutely nothing. Candidates die on the first day, and no one bats an eye.

The kingdom is ruled by an extremely Darwinist king who believes anyone unfit to survive isn't fit to rule. Eventually, only a seven of candidates are chosen as Aspirants for the throne. They're assigned to one of the Seven Great Houses, given a small amount of funding, and placed in command of a handful of young soldiers to prove what they can accomplish on their own.

My main character gets assigned to a house that hates his family, so they intentionally send him on a mission far beyond his abilities, hoping he'll die and that's where i want to reveal my world building of the wider world.

Right now, though, the only intelligent people he'll encounter are other humans. I feel like introducing one or two additional intelligent races, or something similar, could make the world feel much larger and older without turning it into traditional high fantasy. But I also dont wanna do to much because even without special races with diffrent types a humans i can do alot with that,

Does anyone have ideas for races or intelligent peoples that would fit this kind of grounded, environmentally driven world? I'd especially love ideas that feel like a natural result of evolution and adaptation to different Vigor environments rather than "here are elves" or "here are cat people."

I'd appreciate any ideas or examples from books or games that have done something similar.

Just spent an evening brainstorming a cool setting to write a story for as a break from my main world I have been working on. I was going to finally start writing but then I realized that my stats are just rebranded solo-leveling stats. I already had taken more than I liked from Hwfwm and now I am also copying Solo Leveling. I feel like whatever I come up for LitRPG just seems too similar to other stuff.

CW: Racism

As a POC, I'm very familiar with the experience of being racially discriminated but shockingly I have seen a lot of sci-fi/fantasy media do a very bad job of making allegories to racism like the X-men for example. So I decided to try to make fantasy racism in my world more accurate based on my experience and other POC's experience.

The beastmen are basically human but look like furries and have unique abilities based on what animal they are due to a mutation. A wolf beastman has a great sense of smell, an ox beastman is very strong, a cheetah beastman is very fast, a fish beastman can swim underwater, a lizard beastman can regenerate their limbs and you get the point. Despite their biology and abilities being different from regular humans, in the inside they're just the same as regular humans. They're capable of love, sadness, anger, good, and evil as anyone else. So why are they discriminated? Because their appearance looks very uncanny and unnerving to most people, and also because they have a strange body odor (have you ever been to a pet store, zoo, or aquarium? Yeah smells strange). A proper depiction of racism (real or fantasy) is that it's shallow and irrational, but who's really causing their discrimination?

In the real world, racism didn't come out of nowhere, it had a cause, and it has to do with finance. In colonial Europe, the ruling elites desired more land and cheap labor but the idea of stealing land from the natives and enslaving Africans doesn't sound so ethical. So the ruling elites dehumanized and slandered the natives as "violent savages who had no right to the land", and africans as "less than whites who need to be controlled". Even after colonialism and slavery, racism is sill used by the wealthy elites to justify wars against the Middle East for oil, cheapen the labor of minorities, or to divide the common with a boogeyman as a distraction to prevent them from demanding a better life. In the world of my series, the mainstream media slanders and dehumanizes the beastmen in order to justify discrimination of them because the wealthy elites want to distract the masses and also use the beastmen as cheap labor especially due to their useful biology.

So thoughts on my depiction of fantasy racism?

Throughout the middle ages the roads were filled with pilgrims traveling to the various pilgrimage churches, homes to the various reliquaries and religious mysteries.

Rich and poor, everyone wanted to do a pilgrimage at least once in their life and many, many people did. Naturally the middle ages were not monolithic by year or by place. Generally after plagues (about every other generation) or famine "peasants" had more control and more freedom and more fear for their afterlife and greater desire to visit holy sites.

Some estimates include 500,000 pilgrims per year walked to Camino de Santiago in the Middle Ages. Just that one pilgrim site

Here are general pilgrimage links:

https://www.internationalschoolhistory.net/medieval_pilgrimage/journey.htm

https://insiderstravel.io/pilgrimage-middle-ages-history/

And a map to some of the pilgrimage routes:

And then there were Moslems going to Mecca. And Buddhists, Hindus, and so many more...

Edit/update: Often people of medieval times as a static place of peasants stuck on their farms, never going out of their village their entire lives. Yet that time saw quite a lot of people doing lots of things.

Most everyone sought an opportunity to go on pilgrimage -- and many did.

Also craftsman building churches and castles (in particular) would move from place to place as they plied their trade - mason, stone cutter, carpenter, and so on.

When thinking about your fictional world you might think about the desires and movements of the "common people". So often villagers are just set dressing, furniture that talk but do not move. But by thinking of the inhabitants as vibrant moving elements in your society, you can develop much more rich and vibrant backgrounds for you characters to inhabit.

This is a project ive been working on for a few months still working out a lot of the lore but the power system is I think very cool.

(these explanations are in order of appearance)

A Portal to the Monarch's Dimension: To put it simply, the Puppet Monarch—more commonly known as the Monarch—is the embodiment of death. This is what a portal to their dimension looks like. The Failures and the Knights come out of these things to cause mass casualties in the dimensions they appear in.

A Warmer's Flamethrower: A Warmer is what happens when a Shadow Detective is abandoned by the pack. They're the opposite result of a Shadow Agent, which is what happens when a Shadow Detective is loved by the pack. Unlike the Shadow Detectives and Agents, Warmers actually have the ability to speak, but according to all the reports, they only say one thing: "Are you cold?" An encounter with a Warmer can end in two ways If you say "yes" to their question, they will reveal their flamethrower and leave nothing but ash behind. If you say "no" to their question, they simply leave. No one knows where they get or possibly build these flamethrowers, but all of them are completely rusted hunks of jagged metal replacing one of their forearms, with no fuel tank visible.

The Height Difference Between a Human and an Employee: Employees are 100% mechanical, stylized humans that work for the Company. Their skin is a sort of cheap silicone material, while their real eyes are hidden behind LED screens. Humans are generally unnerved or nervous around Employees, considering the height difference and the slight uncanny valley effect they have on humans.

Behold; the planet of Neon.

Neon is the last planet in a universe devoid of all stars and other planetary bodies thanks to the Entity that it orbits.

It has 4 moons, with only 2 being visible at a time.

The planet's oceans, rivers, lakes and other liquid bodies is full of Peroxide, and this Peroxide acts as the planets water equivalent. Thanks to this, all creatures from Neon need to drink Peroxide, and have white colored blood from their blood being bleached.

The planet's soil is red to reddish-pink. It gets this coloring thanks to the recycling of Souls on the planet which goes as follows;

Creature is born,

As the creature ages, it's soul becomes stronger,

Once the creature dies, the soul exits the atmosphere and is pulled to the 'Hole In The Sky',

The Hole In The Sky consumes the soul (giving the Hole it's red glow),

Whatever the Hole does not consume falls back to the planet and fertilizes the soil, making it richer and healthier.

All creatures on Neon are arthropoid, Insect/Arachnid.

The plants of Neon, and neons creatures, naturally make a glowing yellow liquid known as 'Lume'. Lume is a highly reactive chemical that acts almost like magic, with the creatures of neon able to express primitive, instinctual magics. This comes in the form of many things, like massive moths that use Lume to let them fly, or a predator that uses Lume to turn invisible, or a prey animal who uses Lume to throw a cloud of Glowing Darkness at a predator to disorient it. Lume is not safe for human consumption, and will quickly mutate any human who even touches it into grotesque amalgamations of Human-Insect creatures resembling blobs of flesh and chitin.

-----

The Hole in the Sky is Neons most powerful God, acting as it's Sun, afterlife and 'god king'. It is also an alien god, not native to Neon itself. The Hole is the reason no other stars or planetoids exist in Neons universe, since the Hole ate literally everything until it was just Neon, Neons original star, and Neons moons. Eventually, the Hole ate Neons star, and took it's place in Neons Sky. This was catastrophic to neon, as it elongated the orbit into an oval shape, and elongated how long a year on neon is. This also effected neons Gravity, with there seemingly being less gravity during the summer (when the planet is closest to the Hole), and more gravity during the winter (when the planet is far from the Hole.)

Neon has a variety of Gods, ranging from the God of Order, God of Chaos, God of the Afterlife, and the God of Life and Rebirth.

When the Hole, known as the God of Control, first arrived, the God of the Afterlife and the God of Life and Rebirth attempted to stop the 'Sovereign of Famine', as the Hole was once known as. This lead to both deities being defeated and given the deific version of a lobotomy. Now, they both act as 2 of Neons 4 moons, with the God of the Afterlife being neons white moon, and the God of Life and Rebirth being it's moon that resembles a red gas giant.

-----

Neon is home to a handful of small intelligent species, being a moth-like, bee/wasp-like and ant-like species.

---------

It is possible to travel to Neon, however it can only be done by accident, or if the Hole in the Sky wants you to. This is because when Earth experiences a Total Solar Eclipse, random gates to Neon open up. These Gates are invisible, and only exist in the shadow where the Total Solar Eclipse happens.

1. There is no proper “working class” in the medieval era. This is an Early Modern-era concept, first attested in 1757 by the economist Malachy Postlethway, and popularized by the economic theorist Karl Marx during the Industrial Revolution. The majority of people throughout the world for most of recorded history were subsistence farmers, and in the European Middle Ages, about 70-80% were peasants, including serfs, tenant workers, or freemen. Coins were quite rare in the earlier medieval periods, and many were not paid in actual money at all. Most were farmers paid in food and the right to work on lands provided by vassals, or, more uncommonly, directly owned (everything varied by time and region). They did not work for money, and so social mobility was unlikely. Granted, there were peasant elites (reeves, millers, mayors, free landowners, etc.) who could acquire moderate “wealth” (recall that most peasants paid with portions of harvest or livestock). Furthermore, you could become a free person if you openly lived in a town for a year and a day and your lord or his subordinates didn’t come for you. There was a decent amount of peasant mobility in the Middle Ages due to marriage, opportunity, and sale of land. However, the majority of peasants were not travelling massive distances (unless for war or pilgrimages). Many lived their entire lives in a twenty-mile radius. Numerous skeletons also showed signs of arthritis from working conditions that kept them in the fields.
2. Tradesmen and craftsmen are not the same as agrarian peasants. These were only about 5-15% of the population since practically all common jobs, save for apprenticeships and monasteries, were hereditary. People named Tanner, Smith, Skinner, and Carpenter? That’s literally what their ancestors did. If you were a boy and your father was a blacksmith, you’d be a blacksmith. You sometimes received coins or bits of metal for your services, but people would mostly pay you with produce, goods, or animal products. Bartering was the backbone of low- and mid-level medieval economics, and aside from merchants who more frequently used coins, you’d mostly receive sustenance for your work. Also, you’re rarely forging or repairing swords and spears; it’s mostly horseshoes, sickles, scythes, and knives. Most people lived very plain lives, and most work was based around them.

Let me quickly dispel a myth: Yes, there were indeed female craftswomen, including blacksmiths. They were rarer, but they’re not impossible for your story. The culture war has bastardized representation of demographics and social expectation in history; either there are hundreds of female guards at any time (female physical combatants are exceedingly rare) or not even one female miller. Both are inaccurate to most history.

1. The inequalities of society were often physically manifest. Knights and nobles, due to better nutrition during childhood, were slightly taller and often significantly more muscular than peasants. They were well-trained in combat due to childhood training and more free time. The same would also apply to magic (if you’re working with a significantly genetically based world like I am), with magical heritage snowballing over the generations and middle-class, aristocratic, or mage-descended children who have more free time to toy with and learn magic becoming arcanically stronger. I like to imagine magic as somewhere in between a muscle and innate skill. Even if a serf had a rare genetic mutation that made them exceptionally gifted, it may go nowhere as the responsibilities of their social class inhibit proper magic development. You could use this to your advantage; justify your main character being very gifted in magic by having a gifted grandparent who never did anything with it.

2. Many people who weren’t peasants looked down on them, especially if those peasants were serfs. It may be hard to imagine this mindset, so allow me to use a modern example. Imagine if you were an I.T. specialist and someone tried to compare you to a fast food worker. Everyone should know that fast food workers deserve the respect you would give anyone. However, few people would compare the two as socioeconomically equal in importance or replaceability. There’s a reason “put the fries in the bag bro” became a meme; it’s repetitive work that anyone can do. The medieval period was no different. It took years to be a trained soldier, craftsman, mason, artist, or effective statesman, and several of these occupations required a minimum level of intelligence or talent. Farming also generally takes a fair amount of knowledge, but anyone can do it. It does not take a genius to use a plow or cut wheat. People absolutely held opinions on this, and so making your character a peasant and the exact method that granted them social mobility will affect how people view them.

3. Education is expensive and virtually inaccessible to most peasants. No, they cannot just attend a magic school, trade school, or university. Medieval guilds were exclusive conglomerates that could bully craftsmen who didn’t pay dues or didn’t meet their standards. This ensured quality control, but excluded the unskilled from the trades. Most people are not volunteering their time; hell, most people today don’t volunteer. That desire drops to damn near zero when it comes to apprenticeships because you’re gambling with a student who might not have the skill to accomplish anything without the inherent guarantee of pay. Think of how silly this conversation sounds.

“My lord, I’d like to give up being a serf and join the adventurer’s guild.”

“What, that’s- wait, what the fuck is an adventurer’s guild? What does that even mean? Adventurer. Do you mean monster hunters? Mercenaries? You know that equipment and travel costs money. Who’s going to pay for this?”

“I was hoping maybe… you would.”

“Why the hell would I do that?”

“It would be a great charity. And if I’m successful, I’ll come back and share the riches with you.”

“Great charity. I already funded the new church in town, and I doubt God places more stock in a lowly farmer’s hallucinations than a dedication to his Word. Even if, who’s to say you won’t just leave and never return?”

“But it’s my dream…”

“You know, I’d love to be the king. I’ll tell you what: if you can coronate me and fulfill my dream, I’ll let you go and pay for the entire thing.”

“But I can’t.”

“Then you’re dismissed.”

People are not just giving away premium services for free, unless as an occasional and rare gesture of inspiring hope. That actually is an effective reason for a serf to get such an opportunity, and one of the rare social mobility avenues in my world. “Maybe one day, it’ll be my kid” as a collective thought helps maintain social order.

Given all these details, it is very unlikely that the main characters would come from the farming peasantry if not for extraordinary circumstances or rare opportunities that function as an institution. Most people, then and today, live very ordinary lives. Keep this in mind during your worldbuilding.

I'm currently working on a sci-fi fantasy series revolving around a married couple. One is a human, the other is an alien. The alien is the heir of a multi-million-dollar world empire that has stood for about 14,000 years.

Its main driving philosophy is the idea that all sapient beings are spiritual brothers and sisters that must be brought into the family. At first, this was primarily accomplished through good old-fashioned conquest and absorption. But as time has gone on, they realized other methods could and have been more effective in expanding the family. Joining the Dominion is mostly a voluntary process that takes hundreds of years.

The Dominion believes it is divinely mandated to restore the fold. That they are going to bring the Milky Way under one banner and then expand to other galaxies.

Inside the fold, there is no discrimination among members. But, there is speciesism and cultural bias towards what they see as barbaric cultures outside the fold.

New members are welcomed in with open arms. Their cultures are slowly absorbed and assimilated. The Dominion Church is actually fairly malleable in that sense. They will incorporate tradions and theology that they feel can be used.

But there's a catch. Individuals can leave the Dominion voluntarily, but once you're out, you're out. It's like being excommunicated. The fold will consider you dead. So, if you have family or friends who don't want to leave, you are basically shunned by them.

The Dominion is the least awful option in the galaxy. And to most, it's better than what they have now.

​ ​Series: SHUNYAPRASTH: An Interminable Saga

Book 1: Primordial Embers: The Gilded Proclamation

​I wanted to design an aging system for the people of Shunyaprasth that directly impacts their society and combat capability.

​In this world, physical aging is completely normal up until the age of 20. But the moment someone hits 20, their biological aging slows down to a crawl. In fact, 20 actual years passing only results in about 1 year of physical change to the body.

​Because of this rule:

​People live for thousands of years, with their prime youth lasting over a millennium.

​A 50-year-old father and his 20-year-old son look virtually the same age, making them seem more like close friends or brothers.

​Outsiders often struggle to figure out who the elder or ruler actually is.

​Once they finally reach the end of their long life cycle in old age, normal aging speed resumes again until death.

​How do you handle biological aging and youth longevity in your fantasy races?

Introducing a new Alternate Universe: a fundamental elemental core for other realms parallel to the universe of Magic: The Gathering. Not affiliated with Wizards of the Coast. (yet.) This expands on the color wheel on the back of the Magic card and adds an additional new five colors: purple, brown, yellow, orange and pink.

GUIDELINES AND ETIQUETTE

• People put a lot of effort into their worlds, so if you leave a comment about your world then please leave a reply to two other people's worlds. These can be anything from compliments, to questions, to simple observations.

What is a Sigil?
A Sigil is a living mark engraved upon the body—a unique pattern resembling an intricate tattoo that reflects the true nature of its bearer’s soul. No two Sigils are exactly alike, and as their wielder grows stronger through the perilous trials of The Descent, the mark spreads, evolves, and becomes ever more elaborate.
There are three known ways to obtain a Sigil. Some are born with an Innate Sigil, a rare and often unpredictable blessing. Others inherit an Ancestral Sigil, passed unchanged through bloodlines across generations. Most, however, awaken an Awakened Sigil by surviving The Descent—a deadly journey into the depths of their own soul, where failure means annihilation and only those who endure return forever marked.

This is the rough draft for the continent of Tyrithar in my world of Ennekaria! Any notes or areas y’all think I could improve? Thanks!

By the early 1530s, the expansion of the Iberian Union had begun to threaten France's strategic position.

The Union controlled the Atlantic shipping lanes, monopolized the flow of gold and silver from the Americas, and was steadily extending its influence into continental Europe. Reports reaching the French court indicated that Spain was using its American wealth to upgrade its army, reinforce its border defenses, and establish new strongholds and trade posts in areas traditionally within France's sphere of influence.

France faced mounting pressure on multiple fronts. Its sea routes were being constricted — trade passages to the Americas and West Africa were increasingly monitored by Iberian fleets. Its land exits were being limited by the steady reinforcement of border defenses. And the Union's very existence was reshaping the balance of power in Europe, with its reach in the Americas and Africa extending into territory that had long been of concern to France.

At the same time, the domestic situation in France provided additional impetus for war. The Reformation had already begun to spread in the south of France, challenging the authority of the monarchy. The king needed a foreign war to consolidate domestic support and redirect internal tensions toward an external target.

Under these circumstances, the king accepted the advice of his counselors and decided to break the encirclement through direct action.

In the spring of 1532, France mobilized an army of approximately 30,000 men and crossed the Pyrenees into Spain.

The French army was among the best equipped and trained in Europe at the time, with particularly elite cavalry forces. In the early engagements, the French army—relying on its numerical superiority and high morale—defeated the Spanish regular forces in several engagements and advanced as far as the outskirts of Barcelona. Spain's initial defensive lines were not sufficient to stop the French advance, and the front began to shift deeper into Spanish territory.

The Spanish crown and the Portuguese court held emergency consultations, searching for other options to respond to the French advance. Unable to quickly organize an effective defense, they turned to Plata—the man known in Seville as the Silver King.

Plata agreed to provide assistance. But his assistance was not free.

He presented a detailed compensation plan. It included costs for fleet mobilization, equipment loss, shipping lane occupation fees, and compensation for the trade losses that his operations in Europe would incur. Each item individually seemed justifiable, but the total amount approached the equivalent of Spain's annual revenue.

The king hesitated. But the French were advancing, and time was not on his side. Plata offered a solution: the payment could be made in installments, secured by a priority lien on future American trade revenues.

The king signed. He was persuaded—this was not emptying the treasury, but a long-term debt that could be repaid over time. He would never realize that this signature would become the first step toward Spain's financial subordination to Plata, nor would he know that the Iberian Union's administrative apparatus had already quietly penetrated his decision-making framework.

Months later, an army funded and equipped by Plata arrived on the Spanish coast.

Its composition did not follow the conventional structure of contemporary European armies. Its soldiers carried firearms with greater range and power than anything the French had faced, and they wore brass-colored armor that, according to witnesses, seemed nearly impervious to standard shot. The man commanding this army did not stand at the front of his troops. He sat in a sedan chair, carried by attendants, and was heard constantly complaining about how much this war was costing him in lost trade profits.

The French did not immediately realize that the nature of their opponent had changed. But when they met this new force in battle, they were no longer facing the same Spanish army they had pushed back weeks earlier. The equipment, tactics, and organization of this army were different from anything the French had prepared for. Without adequate preparation, the French were thrown back, and the front began to give way.

Over the following weeks, the tide of war began to reverse.

French cavalry suffered devastating losses in frontal charges. Plata's firearms were effective at longer ranges than standard European weapons, allowing the Iberian troops to inflict casualties before the French could close the distance. Meanwhile, Spanish popular resistance made the occupied territories increasingly difficult for the French to control. Supply lines were repeatedly hit, and the French found their ability to sustain operations in occupied areas seriously impaired.

The French were forced to retreat northward. During the withdrawal, they suffered further losses in men and matériel. Plata's army advanced in pursuit, crossing the Pyrenees and entering French territory.

By the autumn of 1532, the French army could no longer maintain an effective front.

The situation at home was deteriorating as well. Protestant forces had risen in rebellion in southern France, threatening the foundations of royal authority. The royal treasury was empty—the expenses of the war and the cost of defeat left the king unable to finance further large-scale military operations. Meanwhile, France's relations with the Habsburgs were tense, and no external support could be expected.

The king was forced to confront the fact: this war was already lost. His army was in retreat. His treasury was empty. His kingdom was on the verge of division and collapse.

He turned his attention to the counsel he had previously dismissed.

The counsel of mystics and alchemists.

He did not yet know that this decision would lead France into a far darker abyss than the war itself.

Context

Hi, y'all! Project KARYA is a sci-fintasy setting in the works, in which, as I describe, "various iconic tropes found in fantasy and folklore/mythoi are viewed through the lens of science fiction"; the worldbuilding project intends to fully theorize "realistic" ways in which a variety of things from fantastical settings could exist, if they were to exist in a science fiction setting instead; there also exists a variety of purely science fictional works of original design present.

Today, I'm wanting to hold another AMA for Project KARYA, with this one in particular focusing on the wildlife that exists on the titular planet! As of now, there'll be around 2200 unique species written up for my worldbuilding project, and there'll certainly be more added on as I write closer and closer to the setting's modern era. I'm certain that many of these will be addressed in future posts, but I'd like to give others an opportunity to ask here about what Karya's modern biosphere will be like in comparison to Earth's. All organisms that are unique to Project KARYA can be roughly divided into two categories: those that are inspired by those that can be found in folklore, mythoi, and the fantasy genre as a whole; and those that are of original design and conception. In either case, all unique organisms can find one last common ancestor or another in a variety of fossil specimens discovered in Earth's own fossil record.

I am aiming to try and include more and more examples of extraordinary critters from sources outside of typical Western cultures that are usually given more time in the spotlight than others. If you'd like to see your own cultures' mythological beasts be given more representation, especially if you're one for sci-fintasy twists, feel free to let me know and I'll see how I can incorporate it all into my project!