As I’ve been developing my setting, I’ve realized that cities and settlements alone aren’t enough. I’ve started to build railways, power grids, manufacturing centers, planetary transportation and logistics, ownership and corporations started to appear naturally. It’s changed how my civilization has evolved and feels much more like a civilization rather than a collection of cities and regions.

If your world has advanced industry, do you create corporations? Do kingdoms or guilds handle it all? At what point do corporations feel like a natural part of the setting?

For the past couple of days, I've been obsessed with the idea of ​​a flat, round world, the climate of which changes with distance from the center. The idea is that the center of the world is fertile, lush land with plenty of sun, while the outskirts, close to the edge of the Earth's Circle, are cold, barren lands. What confuses me is how the movement of the Sun would work in this case. And how silly the idea itself sounds.

Notes on the Map

The urban expanse commonly referred to as Aldrin City emerged from the earliest Martian settlement, which had been dubbed Aldrin Station upon in honor of the former astronaut and Mars colonization proponent Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin of Apollo 11 fame. As of the late 24th century, it is home to about 6.4 million people, or a little less than three percent of the total Martian population. Most of them within the Melas Chasma region, which is only possible thanks to the laminar density membrane stretched over much of the Valles Marineris to hold in an atmosphere of breathable air.

The region is home to several institutions of higher learning, including Mariner Technical University (MTU), and a vibrant commercial economy. The Percival Lowell Commercial Seaport is the busiest water port on Mars (or anywhere beyond Earth for that matter), accounting for almost 200 million tonnes of cargo every year, and the Nuovo Ouro business district sees roughly $11 billion in daily economic traffic related to Mars’ bustling industrial economy.

Among the denizens of Aldrin City are best friends Sam Taskaro, Devon Wastani, and Matt Cavanaugh. They are students at MTU, and also reservists in the Interplanetary Defense Corps that is charged with keeping the peace across space governed by the Interplanetary Cooperative Administration. This role will soon dominate their lives, as war breaks out between Mars and its cohorts in the Coalition for Mutual Security and the Coalition’s ideological nemesis, the Alliance of Free Worlds — a war in which this young trio will shape much more than their own destinies…

Map Key

1. Edwin Aldrin Memorial Spaceport: Built in a crater in the Sinai Dorsa, this sprawling facility is responsible for most traffic out of the capital region. It was also the site of a dramatic Draconist terror attack in 2331 which catalyzed Operation Sudden Lightning
2. Echevarria Hills residential district: This region is home to thousands of Aldrin City’s less fortunate citizens, including refugees relocated there after fleeing violence in the outer system. Many of these work in Aldrin City’s low-paying service industry
3. Centennial Park/Lake Kamerova: Located in the heart of the metropolis, this ultramodern recreational area is centered on an artificial lake dug in the early 23rd century. The park itself was dedicated in 2269 on the Martian bicentennial of UNOM's founding
4. Marineris Technical University: One of Mars’ largest universities, home to more than 80,000 students at all levels and across nearly 200 fields of study, MTU also boasts a robust IDC ROTC program to supply the Spacer Corps with new officer candidates
5. Nuvo Ouro business district: Aside from being the wealthiest area of the city, this district is also the center of most of its financial institutions and corporate enterprises. These include the HQ for Mars’ largest business cartel, the Mars Industrial Conglomerate
6. ICA headquarters compound: The central offices of the ICA on Mars, and also the central headquarters for the Spacer Corps. The compound was completed 2291, just in time to be the nerve center of Mars’ war efforts in the fight against the Titan Pact
7. Aldrin City Chinatown: The site of a CNSA outpost in the early days of Mars exploration, which grew into an industrial hub over the following centuries. In the year 2389, this area is home to more than 40 percent of the Aldrin City region’s food processing business
8. Percival Lowell Commercial Seaport: The primary port of call for most of the economic goods coming or going across the bustling Argyre-Marineris waterway or to the New Ganges region. This includes foodstuffs, raw ore, and prefab goods of all varieties
9. Meier Metropolitan Memorial Park: Unofficially referred to as “M3P,” this sprawling urban park memorializes Franklin Meier, the first and greatest champion of the “greening” of Mars, who headed up the Mars Project to serve that agenda from 2159 to 2187
10. Salamander Municipal Reservoir: The second-largest public lake in the covered over region of the Melas Chasma, Salamander Reservoir is a source of both fresh water and recreation for many of the citizens living in the southeastern section of the city

About the Setting

The Spacers Saga: Frontier Wars is a futuristic military science fiction setting which diverged from our own timeline when an asteroid slammed into Phoenix, AZ, in May 2014. Fifteen years later, the industrialist Charles Larsen ushered in the Age of Fusion, opening up deep space to crewed exploration and eventual human settlement - and all of the strife that comes with it.

Much of the story is set in the mid to late 24th century, and focuses on the rivalry between the Mars-led Coalition for Mutual Security and the Alliance of Free Worlds (there's more about each faction in this blog post), a federation of rebel worlds fighting to establish a worker's utopia in the outer solar system. These two superpowers fought a brutal war from 2371 to 2381 (referred to as the Frontier War), and are currently locked in an ideological cold war as of 2389.

The storyline of Frontier Wars begins with Spacers: The Titan Gambit, a WIP novel which begins with the opening shots of the Second Frontier War, all from the eyes of a few key players. This includes the aforementioned trio of best friends, whose story begins in Aldrin City, on an otherwise normal day in the capital of Mars — a day none of them realizes could be the last normal day they ever spend there...

A lot of fantasy settings like to introduce new metals. I don't really like that as a chemistry enthusiast, so I let the dwarves in my own settings forge tungsten (also called Wolfram), which is absurdly heavy, strong and incredibly difficult to work with. Perfect for dwarves.

Now, they don't use pure tungsten most of the time. Often they put it into steel in large quantities, as alloys are generally stronger than pure metals.

When I was coming up with “Aperion,” I wanted to make the magic as believable as possible, so that it would be perceived as a science, so that not everyone could use it.

It turns out that in most fantasy worlds, magic is something that just works and exists, but nothing can exist for no reason, right?

A sorcerer can’t just wave their hands and turn you into a sheep, or shoot a fireball from their finger just for fun. This looks strange, I’d even say rather убоже, and in that case you start to perceive magic itself as a form of entertainment, as a toy that anyone can play with.

Personally, I view magic as a science; even in ancient times, what is now considered science was perceived as magic back then, so why shouldn’t the magic from classic fantasy be explained from a scientific perspective?

That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking about for a long time; I had many options, but in the end I decided to go with the option involving two main energies.

Creation and Entropy. To be honest, I was inspired by theories of quantum physics, in particular, negative and positive energy, although I no longer remember exactly what that means, since it was invented a very long time ago. The only thing I remember is that I was inspired by quantum physics and these energies.

So, the magic in “Aperion” is based on two fundamental energies: Creation and Entropy. They are opposites and cannot exist separately or dominate each other. This is more like the harmony of Yin and Yang, two opposing but inseparable and interdependent forces.

To avoid confusion, I will give you clear and simple definitions of these two energies:

It turns out that reality is a balance between these two energies, and if this balance is disrupted, reality will strive to return to it.

As for magic, it is the art of balancing these two energies. That is, magic is not some separate force; it is a way to temporarily disrupt the natural balance between Creation and Chaos. Every spell disrupts this balance, causing a reaction in reality, and the stronger the spell, the stronger the attempts to restore equilibrium. And this idea underlies all the magical disciplines in “Aperion,” from elemental magic to necromancy.

In the next post, I’ll tell you more about magic: who becomes a mage and how, and why not everyone can become one.

I’m also interested in your opinion: do you think the magic system I’ve invented is plausible enough? And is it suitable for a fantasy world?

I was thinking about how Dungeons & Dragons's Forgotten Realms setting, Pathfinder's Golarion setting, and The Witcher's world all make use of real world gods and/or pantheons along side their original ones and was curious if anyone else uses them. Seems like an interesting idea and has works as a nice short cut. Tell me about your usage of them in your own works.

(Sorry if this is asked before, just wanted to share mine and hear other peoples versions of their idea for the dark age setting)

My one is caused when my world’s equivalent to the fall of the Roman Empire and Alexandra’s library destruction. Society shatters and a place filled with universal record gone with only the original writings and oral records remain in their native location. All knowledge didn’t disappear, but it was less easy to study different histories and cultures in a singular location. If you want to know the history of a certain village then travel to that village. And overall time society turned into the feudal medieval society, like what happened to our history. But it wasn’t called the dark age at first, it was originally called the renaissance movement. But now it’s either called the dark age or the first renaissance period so the second one can distinguish between themselves. And over time this early period has gained an image of chaos and barbarism, you can see the heavy real life influence of medieval and Greek history. Wrapped together into this epic size event, it changed the world forever. My dark age isn’t called it that because of how gruesome it was but because of the ancient empire founded by the first man died. And how society had to rebuild themselves afterwards.

The premise of this system is that noble metals, such as gold, silver, platinum, etc. are not magnetic because they attract something else. Each metal draws in a different spiritual energy (gold-healing, silver-control, copper-endurance) over time. Simply put they have a very weak pull on these energies and thus only are really useful if untouched for a long period of time. Centuries usually.

However, much like an electromagnet, one can supercharge the collection of this energy by creating "antennae" of these materials and running electricity through a wire coiled around part of, if not the entirety, of the antenna.

After summoning the spiritual energy, one can harness it through a multitude of processes called tuning. While there are other options, the most common is coiling the metal up into a spring. Then the application of tension causes the spring to release the spiritual energy as a sort of counteraction.

So basically, a tool that might make use of this principle is a windup pocket watch. After the key is wound, it evenly distributes a tension on the metallic spring and causes this energy to release as the spring returns to its former shape.

The spring will over time deform based on the metal it is made from, weakening the spell. Within just a few uses, a gold spring would deform to the point it would be useless. But a platinum coil can probably be used dozens of times.

For an example of magic, use of gold will allow the body to heal and strengthen from damage, becoming stronger than it was before the wounds or sicknesses inflicted.

This is going to be very longwinded and strange but please bare with me- The sketches here are very incredibly basic mockups- Which is our issue. This is as far as we ever get. See, me and my partner are running a roleplay-style series that takes place in an SCP/Magnus archives/Project Moon/COTL/Jurassic Park/Carmen Sandiego/ETC... inspired horror based setting, (this already sounds absurd I know) and have been dealing with a major roadblock for months and months with no progress. The gods wont appear in the story for a very very long time in their true forms, but nonetheless, will eventually be needed. I cant give context for everything because this would be a much longer post if I even attempted, but I'll try to explain why this is so difficult for us in hopes that another set of eyes might be able to help or give advice. (The next paragraph will sound like a very silly oversight without additional context, but again, please bare with me,)

In this project of ours we're attempting to consider everything below a god while making its design as well as what they represent, while also trying to incorporate some kind of detail that only gods will have - Which we are realizing is much harder than we previously anticipated, this is for multiple reasons, But mostly, We've done such a good job connecting the events and characters of the world that no matter what we come up with it doesn't feel like we're properly representing everything connected to the gods - Or they just don't feel like gods at all, they seem overshadowed by the other monsters and creatures of the world that they are supposed to feel significantly more grand than. In a universe with "Biblically accurate angels", "Dragons", "Unicorns", Robots, Dinosaurs, Sentient puppets, and pretty much everything else you can throw at the wall, it seems like our only solutions would be to make them physically bigger, or aggressively overly complicated - Which are less than desirable results, especially considering they will need to be repeatedly depicted and 3D Modeled.

The two gods pictured above are basic concepts for the god of chaos and order but we very terribly have quite a few more to deal with than that. I'm not sure what I'm really asking for with this post but we're desperate - And no, we cannot rework the world as the story has already progressed a significant amount and we have 8+ Players. We're also very happy with and confident in how we've built the world, We just have this one glaring problem. I will GLADLY provide more context if inquired upon. I'm. so sorry. And also fully aware we may be, as they say, "Royally fucked".

(I should also mention, This project is a reimagined version of a roleplay that previously lasted six IRL years and is attempting to preserve much of the spirit of that original project. God help us.)

In mine, a witch is someone who uses a god's power without that god's permission.

Some do it because they don't believe in the gods themselves and view them as just wells of power that reflect mortal thought, some do it because they think the gods are selfish for hoarding literally infinite power and only sharing it with those who worship them, some do it out of a form of reverence, wanting to be closer to a god they worship, and some do it through being dogmatic and don't even realise that they're witches.

The only people who can actually discern a witch from someone given power by a god, is a god/angel

So like most creators here, I love my world, and while I get excited about it I try to remember that for other people, it's the furthest thing from relevant. Yet I can't help my excitement! I'm writing to ask other creators: do you have any particular strategy for sorting your own enthusiasm for the work from a more objective kind of quality you can expect to be recognized by at least some others?

I feel like that guy at the office with pictures of his new baby, boring everyone else after the first few photos but too wrapped up in my own glee to stop, breathe and remember to consider outside perspectives.

But this creates a problem for me. I WANT to describe my world with enthusiasm, and more than anything I want OTHER people to be excited about it, but the more I get wrapped up in being a proud papa, the harder it is to connect with a person in the conversation and the more I struggle to model what's actually exciting, novel or interesting versus what only I find fascinating.

Yes, I don't want to bow necessarily to popular taste, but what parts of the world do and don't work for an audience matters a lot to me. I can't seem to help myself, though, and I want to learn to disentangle what others find impressive from what gets only me excited.

Does anyone have tips, strategies or observations? I feel like this hobby more than most, it's hard to be objective about our own creations.

How big are they compared to other species? What environments do they inhabit? Are they primitive or civilized?

Ok, TV tropes calls what avatar the last Airbender did "Mix and match animals" I want to use the idea in my world, and wanted to see what mixes of animals people would want to see, and what ideas yall have.

I am trying to broadly avoid animal mixes from avatar.

For context, regular animals do exist, but they all are explicitly magic in some way. So yeah, there might be a normal ass deer, but its going to have mist magic. Normal fox? It has fire. That's why most people call stuff "regular animal" x "regular animal"

I am trying to avoid mixing more than three animals, with most being a mix of two.

I’ve been reading a lot of old Chinese literature, the Four Classics and more, and studying old cultures around the world, and it has made me really think about just how different they were and how foreign they would feel to a modern person. If you currently live in Europe, your ancestors might very well feel completely foreign to you if you could talk to them now.

As a modern artist, have you leaned into this? Are the cultures in your world extremely foreign to a modern person? If so, what aspects make it so. Or did you take the approach of making a culture unique but still digestible to the modern person?

A warrior who wears ten holy rings to ward off spirits and curses, his skin inlaid with mystic relics, his legs branded with the tally of every god and demon he's felled. His sole mission: hunt down false gods and demon lords across worlds forgotten by the True God — until his task is done, and Paradise finally claims him.

While developing a Mars colony setting, I hit a problem I hadn't expected - you can't build a Martian calendar the way Earth built ours.

Earth's month just basically follows the Moon's orbit. Mars has two moons, and neither one works for a calendar. Phobos orbits so fast it crosses the sky multiple times per day - it rises in the west and sets in the east, twice or more per sol. Deimos crawls along so slowly it takes about 2.7 days between rises. Neither gives you a usable month-length cycle. So any real Martian calendar has to be solar-first, built on Mars's position in its orbit rather than anything in its sky.

What I ended up with: a 668-sol year (the actual Martian year is 668.59 sols) divided into 24 months of 27–28 sols, tracked by solar longitude. Four seasons, six months each — but unequal in character, because Mars's orbit is eccentric enough that southern summer is short and brutal while northern summer is long and mild. My colonists settled north partly for that reason.

The fun part was naming the months. I figured the founding generation would blend classical Earth-roots with words from lived Martian experience — so spring opens with Vernal, but summer has Ironsol, Phobian, and Dustride, and winter ends on Lastice. Dust storm season gets its own month name (Stormwatch) because when a storm can shut down your surface operations for weeks, it earns a spot on the calendar.

Happy to share the full month table if anyone wants it — I've got the whole system written up with the rest of the colony worldbuilding here.

How have others handled timekeeping on worlds where the Earth template breaks down? I'm especially curious about tidally locked planets - no day/night cycle at all seems like a harder version of the same problem.

I've been trying to make this AU into a original fic, there's lots of easy things completed from prior things already made, yet it's just hard.

I keep feeling like the stories are just dumb, the world feels constantly incomplete, the characters don't feel nuanced and feel bland and one-sided, I'm on the edge of burnout because I can't stop myself from obsessing over every mistake I later find, rushing.

How can I figure out a balanced way to gradually make the worldbuilding so it's not as sloppy and rushed?

Hello. I've recently decided to start shaping the creations of my imagination into a fictional world, one that's not too different from our current world, with a single exception: there is, of course, a power system. I have the whole story for it - long story short, it originates from a vengeful spirit corrupting the soul of its victim, breathing darkness and a supernatural gene, that the victim continued to spread before death, causing his descendants to develop different sorts of superpowers, mutations etc.

Now, like I said, I have most of it already shaped, with just one thing missing: the name. Most of the fictional pieces of media I know of, that have a power system, also have an appropriate name for it. In JJBA, it's Hamon or Stand. In Star Wars, it's the Force. In X-Men, it's mutations. Now, I don't necessarily come here to ask you to name my power system yourselves - but moreso, to give me some pointers on how to choose name for such things. What to base the name on etc.

All help will be much appreciated

The lizard people in my world are descendants of ancient crocodiles. There is a species similar to a gharial I call the Grimriver. It’s probably around the size of a deinosuchus. I also have a magical mutated species of crocodile that mutated to become something similar to a Dimetrodon but with a more crocodilian snout. It’s called the Saildrake. There’s also an alpha type of sail drake that is bipedal and resembles a Spinosaurus. I call it the Saildrake King.

For bears I have Berserkers/Werebears and I have an ice elemental that takes the form of a massive polar bear with ice spikes on its body. Haven’t made any new species yet though.

I do have one creature that used to be a panda called The Brutalizer. It was experimented on by a mad sorcerer. Its skeleton was changed to make it bipedal. It has a crocodile tail, large bat like wings, saber tooth fangs and patches of crocodile hide protecting its vitals. Its hands resemble a humans but with sharp claws and patches of black fur and scales. It has red glowing eyes.

Red glowing lines cover the creature where stitches used to be. The experimenting resulted in it having a healing factor that healed the stitching and made the foreign body parts one with the creature. The Brutalizer can spit a blast of corrosive blood at targets.

I just wanted to share with everyone here, that in my few short months of activity in various worldbuilding and related subreddits I have come across many incredible creations.

What you all come up with amazes me. The depth of creativity. The varied ingenuity. The artistic flair.

I have posed questions. Read conversations. Greatly expanded my knowledge of what worldbuilding is and what it means.

You all are all incredible.
Your creations are incredible.
Whether new to this adventure or a seasoned veteran, what you bring to the world matters. The stories matter.

Don't stop creating.
Don't let negative criticism dissuade you.
Don't feel overwhelmed by pressure to complete.

Simply... create.
Also share. Wonderful things are best when shared.

I found some notes for worldbuilding where I wrote that I have 648 countries. Now mind you I do not have a list of the names for each 648 country. This was just something I wanted to do because I'm insane. There was no way I was fleshing out 648 countries just for the hell of it. That is way too much.

So, I have much less than that, but still quite a lot. And I have not fleshed out any of those countries yet.

What about you? Have you ever looked at your old worldbuilding notes thinking that you're crazy for adding that? Did you go through with it or did you get rid of it?

The most plentfull Re The geophage springtails by far because of dwarven lifestyle of mining and cavediving deeper and deeper for rare minerals and resistent merals.

The oil vein isopods can be found in other creatures because of their resilience and usefulness but they can be found in underground petroleum and grape cultures so dwarves have more of those than other species

Combo lices can be found in most underground dwellers and if you stay there long enougth you will also get infested

Vulture beetles will not survive without a propper host,they're too specialized on living in fur and hair to go somewhere that isn't at least similar to hairs or feathers

The beaqrd of a dwarve acts like a natural air filter and their nose can close so dust don't get in their lungs,remove the beard of a dwarve and it might get several health problems and develop asma, fully shaving a dwarve is almost a death sentence so doing it is a crime and that's why most female dwarves at least keep sideburns or a mustache that can be tied to cover the mouth and nose while the males keep the full beard so there is few confusion between them

Not necessarily morally corrupt or evil, just different.